Raging Beasts
by L4TIN-G3CKO
Summary: Marcus has never heard of a single Gear making their way into the Hollow before but now Prescott has sent Delta squad down into the subterranean depths in search of information. Depths from which Wolverine emerges, ready to keep them alive no matter what. He was born fighting, and war is what he does, but others disapprove, and Marcus finds himself having to choose sides. Slash
1. Deployment

Okay, I just couldn't leave these two alone, so sue me. I blame the plot bunnies.

**Disclaimer: I don't own the X-men, Wolverine or Gears of War.**

Hoffman's briefings are precise, to-the-point and well-delivered in respect to their target audience: Gears. Prescott's however, aren't. Marcus wants desperately to get a move on with things, shut the man up with a broken jaw and just leave with the file the Chairman is holding. A nameless, generic folder made of pale green card and impossible to differentiate between if stored with other green folders. Marcus uses it to gauge how much of a nightmare this mission is going to be. If Prescott is giving the briefing, he knows without a doubt the mission will be terrible. If he's using a named green folder, nigh-on suicide. A named, stamped folder: just suicide. Green and nameless folder with Prescott giving the briefing and bare minutes before they leave… Marcus is wondering what you are when you agree to go on missions that you know will kill you, in that brutally certain way things like nuclear weapons have of killing you. With no chance of survival unless you happen to be of a species of cockroach immune to the effects of radiation that is. Or a small, lethal man with a tendency to grin like a wolf and kill things like it's a 9 to 5 job.

"You will meet up with a Gear already in situ in the Hollow and from there proceed to the place, from what intel we have received from the agent, that acts as their base of operations and possibly the home of their ruler." Marcus focuses completely on Prescott's words after hearing that. He hasn't heard of any Gears going into the Hollow since Operation Landown or the following missions. Logan has told him that to get in there in the first place is difficult, to remain undetected almost impossible and to stay there for any length of time a baseless hope. Marcus didn't ask how he knew, the man has been on edge, slightly what Marcus can only describe as _sharp_ ever since he joined the COG and started going on lone black ops gigs across Sera, most of them in Locust-occupied areas too.

"When you have the information you are to return to the surface, find a relatively safe LZ and call for a pick-up. Thank-you, Gears and good luck." Prescott gives his official nod, the one Marcus has noticed he always uses to end any speech no matter how short, and leaves. Baird looks unamused.

"Well that was useful." He assumes a mincing pose and clutches a folder of air." Look at me, I got an 'agent' into the Hollow, we've no info so why don't you walk in there and go get us some. Don't you think my smile is nice? I do. Off you go then. Enjoy dying slowly and painfully." No-one smiles, that last statement was a little close to the mark. "Asshole." Baird mutters. Marcus decides that they've had enough time to think over the vague assertions and inferences they were just given and leads the way out of the briefing room and over to the plane of concrete outside the Vehicles Warehouse. Their assigned King Raven is waiting for them and nothing is left to be done before deployment.

The Raven lifts off smoothly once Delta are on-board and heads towards their insertion point. Marcus runs through possibilities, plans and contingencies in his head, keeping an eye on the squad while he does so, watching for signs of anxiety. Not that he would blame anyone for being frightened or scared when heading back to the Hollow but he has to be sure that the squad is up to the task set it, the slightest mistake on this mission and someone could die. The most obvious person to be suffering from stress over the likelihood of survival is Anya. Marcus doesn't doubt that she has grit and determination but she's fairly new to the field, not something you want to be when going on a mission worthy of both Prescott and an unmarked folder.

The chopper banks as it comes in to land in front of a cliff face, old stone that has bent and warped over the millennia towering over them and casting the treeline behind the dismounting Gears into shadow, making menaces out of the landscape. The King Raven departs. Marcus watches it go, most likely the last friendly thing he will see for weeks aside from the Gears under his command. And what a command: Dom, Baird, Dizzy and Cole still present in the squad but now complemented by Bernie herself and the newly fielded Anya Stroud, still looking impeccable in her standard-issue armour with her hacked-short hair. Marcus says nothing, not wanting to give a pep talk or discuss tactics. He just finds the slit in the cliff face, a deep fold in the cliff that forms a passageway into the upper, remote region of the Hollow. How Prescott could have found out about it is beyond Marcus but he leads Delta into the gloom regardless.

The tunnels are much like the others he has been in, strange bioluminescence lighting the spaces and rockworms scavenging around for fallen fruit. Looted sandbags, natural protrusions of rock all creating possible spots for cover and not a sound to be heard apart from the wind whistling out through the slit in the rock that they just came in through. Marcus signals for Bernie to take point, as a tracker and sniper she's the best at spotting Locust before the Locust spot them and more than capable of taking lone scouts out with a single shot from her sniper rifle. Progress is slow, caution dictating that extreme care be taken not to be ambushed, trapped or discovered too early but nevertheless, they make their way deeper into the caverns of the Hollow.

Motion stops, Bernie gradually lowers her hand and no-one even breathes heavily because on the other side of the near-bottomless cavern that their chosen tunnel has merged into the side of as a wide ledge, is another ledge and on this one is a group of Locust. Not just a scouting or normal raiding party either. Marcus counts two Boomers, over a dozen Drones and a Theron Guard, not a group sent out to do anything less than kill Gears. Bernie very slowly raises her rifle to aim at the Locust. The shadows of the tunnel wall behind the enemy warp and explode into a black blur. The Theron Guard falls backwards, a dark shape sprouting from its forehead, the Boomers each fall to their knees as their heads tumble backwards and then the blur is amongst the Drones, one howls in fear before it too dies, blood hitting the walls and beginning to pour off the edge of the outcropping in tiny runnels.

"What the fuck is that?" Bernie mutters. Marcus comes out of his crouch and she whips her head around in shock at his revealing their location. The black figure finishes with the corpses on the other side of the tunnel and as Marcus watches, the rest of Delta too, becomes lost amidst the shadows on the far side again. Marcus stays still and then turns only his head to face the wall a mere metre to his left. Bernie follows his gaze first and then the rest of the Gears do, another minute crawls by and then the shadows deepen and this close, Delta can see the figure drop from the beams of stone above them to land right beside the wall.

"You fucking kidding me?" Comes the harsh demand as the figure stands up and leaves the tar of the shadows behind.

"What do you mean?" Marcus asks in return. Logan takes his hat off with one gloved hand and pinches the bridge of his nose for a moment before responding.

"I told him when I agreed to go black ops that I wouldn't work with others. No offense but it's a little hard to stay undiscovered down here and a squad of seven Gears isn't going to help. Not that Preskie gives a shit about difficulty and mission logistics, eh? Just the results I can get him." He replaces his Stetson. Marcus says nothing else, gestures for Logan to take the lead now and falls in behind the man. Delta follow and Bernie's first-hand experience of Logan's combat skills mean that she has some idea of who he is, Anya however has none other than access to the man's file, but Dizzy mutters something to her and although he doesn't hear the exact words, Marcus can guess with some accuracy that the Gear is telling her to save the questions for when they aren't in danger of discovery.

Marcus has a flash of déjà-vu as they go, memories of Logan's bolthole in the Riftworm coming to the fore of his mind, along with a recollection of the mutant's ambush of Drones and the ease with which he took them down after emerging from the dark like a descending wraith. This bolthole though, is harder to reach, one way in and one way out: a tunnel entrance halfway up a tunnel wall. Logan stands there patiently while Cole gives Baird and Anya a leg up and then while Dom, Cole and Marcus all haul themselves up. Bernie finds it remarkably easy and the squad hover for a moment, watching Logan effortlessly climb up.

Once inside, Logan pins a heavy piece of leathery cloth across the entrance to stop any sound from carrying too far. Marcus glances at it for a minute and then looks away as he gains a hunch as to what it might be made of. Logan notices him looking.

"Nicked it off them, Marcus. Not ideal but I have to make do with what I've got." Marcus nods, tears his eyes away and joins the rest of the squad in crouching or sitting on the stone floor, awaiting further information about what they have to do and the risks facing them. Logan clamps his teeth around an unlit cigar and leans against the wall, watching them watch him.

"Prescott wants info, yeah?" He nods to himself, "been there, done that. I've mapped these tunnels, sent back intel on every variety of Locust or indigenous Hollow species I've found and told them about the Lambent. But I won't go near the Nexus. That's why you're here, he wants you to do what I won't and map the Nexus, or just map its weak points. From what I've been told to do, he wants to sink the thing into the lake beneath it and kill the Locust Queen in the act." He shakes his head. "Getting in there is doable, getting out? Not doable.

Anya pipes up first, her comms-officer experience driving her to get the most information out of people that she can.

"Why won't you go near the Nexus?" Around her, Delta squad tense up, apart from Bernie who's gaze is narrowed, searching.

"Because the Berserkers are around there and if one of them gets wind of me, just the faintest hint of my scent, they'll go mad and so will I. I get compromised like that and I've got every Berserker in the area gunning for me, not to mention every other Locust in the Hollow. Do you know how long I've been down here, picking them off constantly? A fair while. They'll make _sure_ I die and I've a slight aversion to being dropped in Imulsion after seeing the Lambent." Anya thinks for a moment before asking another question.

"Why would the Berserkers go 'mad'" and even to Marcus the air-quotes are painfully obvious, "if they could smell you?" Logan says nothing for an instant and Marcus can tell that he's debating what to tell this girl. Anya misjudges the pauses as a weakness.

"Why would _you_ go mad if that happened?" Logan lifts his head and pins her down with a cold stare. She stops talking.

"Because they know what I'm like on an instinctual level, the other Locust have far less of an idea but the Berserkers are so reliant on senses other than sight that they can tell what kind of being I am. And when they howl, it sends me over the edge, I lose it."

"Define 'lose it.'" Anya challenges him. Logan stalks forward and Marcus lays one hand on his pistol grip, knowing how wired he could be by the constant danger. The mutant crouches down in front of her and locks gazes, not even blinking as he talks.

"I get called a Berserker, not because of the Locust but because it can refer to a fighter who goes into battle with no armour but a greatsword or something and deals massive amounts of damage while sustaining heavy injuries. I can kill a Locust Berserker with my bare hands, because I'm _that kind_ of insane and every time they know I'm around, every time they howl at me, it's a challenge that I can't ignore." He returns to the wall and Anya sits there, visibly shaken.

"What are the Lambent?" Marcus asks, feeling a drop of pity for her, Logan could intimidate anyone when he's like this and she didn't know to stop. He makes a note to take her aside and tell her about Logan, after asking the man's permission.

"The pen-pushers called them that. It's the Imulsion, turns them into something else, mutates them. They glow, is the thing, and when you kill them they explode, means you have to keep your distance if you don't want to lose your eyebrows. The Locust are fighting a civil war with them, the Lambent are attacking from below and forcing them up which is why, I guess, they've started trying to occupy the surface. There's no way they can win this one though, regardless. You kill all the Locust and all you're going to end up fighting are the Lambent. Funny that, what you use for fuel is actually a microorganism that has caused the destruction of most of your species." He smiles and Marcus is struck with the imagery and poetry Logan often resembles when in action, metaphors of knives and killers, similes involving nations broken by their own power, all suddenly embodied by one man's bitterly ironic expression.

"_Our_ species?" Bernie finally says.

"Yeah, I'm an alien." Logan informs her, deadpan.

"Don't bother joking around, why di-" She goes to demand a real answer much Like Marcus once did.

"Bernie, he really is an alien." The sergeant confirms. Bernie looks at him both sceptically and incredulously.

"You're kidding me?" She asks, half meek and half awed.

"No, I got dropped on this planet by an inter-dimensional teleporter during an anti-mutant riot back home. Same dominant species over there, humans, only we've got no Locust but then again, you've got no mutants." Logan supplies.

"No mutants?"

"The so-called next-step in human evolution. Human beings with extra genes that give them abilities like teleportation, telekinesis, flight and stuff. I'm a mutant, comes in handy in warzones but it's what makes me so affected by the Berserkers. I killed the one in Tollen with my bare hands. So yeah, technically I'm an alien and technically you're a separate species from me. Kooky, ain't it?" He throws her a grin around his cigar and winks.

"Is that true Marcus?" Anya asks. Bernie looks at her.

"If it wasn't, he would've told Logan to shut up." She nearly snaps, shock fraying her nerves.

"He can prove it!" Baird interjects, surprisingly eager. Marcus and Logan both glare at him, knowing exactly what he has in mind, nevertheless, obligingly, Logan loosens the straps on the bracer on his right arm and slips it off along with the glove underneath it. Marcus watches his face and even through the shadows cast by the brim of his Stetson, sees the faint grimace at the pain the mutant is about to subject himself to. He pops the claws on his left hand and slides the middle one through the flesh of his right forearm, fitting it between the bones and waiting until the blood is streaming off the tip of the blade in rivulets of red before retracting the claws and digging a cloth out of a pocket with which to wipe the blood off his arm.

There isn't a mark left on his skin. Bernie pales, Anya stands up hurriedly and Logan points behind her to a niche in the den walls.

"I'd go throw up over there." She goes and the sound of retching echoes through the room, Baird looks as ill as he did last time Logan stabbed his own arm. "You gonna go throw up with her, Blondie?" Logan snarls at him. Marcus doesn't feel sorry for him, a little annoyed that the Gear suggested Logan maim himself, however temporarily, but not sorry.

"We done with this little interrogation party?" Logan demands, donning his glove and bracer again. "Because I've just told you all I know about your mission and I ain't got anything else to say." Marcus declares the case closed and immediately the shorter man slips out under the cloth covering the entrance.

"Has he been doing black ops for Prescott since he joined up?" Dom asks ponderously.

"Yeah, he has." Marcus informs him.

"Why?" Comes the inevitable question.

"Because Prescott tells him to."

"But Logan's more than capable of refusing and getting away with it." Dom's concern for his squad mate is evident.

"I think that he considers it best if he goes on the missions and survives because of his abilities rather than us or other Gears going and getting hurt or dying."

"It's getting to him though, it's wearing him down, Marcus." Dom is almost pleading now and Marcus wishes he could give in. "You can tell Marcus, he's been on edge constantly since he started going on these missions, he's under too much pressure." And although Marcus bristles at the implication that Logan is weak in any way, he can see Dom's point, see it a little too clearly. He sighs.

"He's fine." Bernie speaks up again. Dom stares at her shocked and goes to respond. "He seems on edge and too wound up but he's fine. Black ops guys who are in the field make good espionage agents and then often tend to act tense all the time when they're off duty. It's because after so long on the job they get so that they notice everything and the amount of information they pick up in busy places drives them to distraction. I mean, eventually they get even better and that's not a problem and they can deal with pretty much anything just fine but they always keep up the act of being a normal person who struggles under pressure because otherwise people like Prescott take the piss with their missions and normal soldiers get scared of them." She pauses and shakes her head. "I knew a guy like him once, was exactly the same, frowned at all the right moments and snapped at the right people and then one day I got sent on a mission with him and he was like a man walking in the park, totally stress-free. He told me about it all. I remember asking him why he was still so tense when he was off duty if he didn't have a problem with the information overload and he looked at me like I'd gone mad, didn't even realise that he was acting stressed to put people at ease." She shrugs and jerks her head towards the cloth-covered entrance. "He's irritated, I'll bet, that novices like us are here, but when it comes down to it, he's fine."


	2. Tactics

Logan scowls at the empty space ahead of him, lingering phantom pains from his arm setting him further on edge and the innate paranoia that being in the field gives him exacerbated by the presence of the Gears sitting and sleeping in his current bolthole. What's more is the knowledge that they will not be able to make it both in and out of the Nexus with the information needed on their own, however skilled Bernie is and however capable a leader Marcus may be, the Locust are too pressured to slip up now. Their defences are constant and unchanging, airtight and tried and tested. He wants to rail at the sky only he's underground and he's not quite annoyed enough to punch a wall yet, so instead he settles for rolling his shoulders and grimacing.

He cools his heels for a while, keeping an ear out for Locust activity but eventually pads back to the bolthole and slips back in. As seems to be the usual, Cole, Dizzy and Baird are asleep and Dom is wrapped up in his own thought that, to Logan's senses, seem dangerously melancholy. Bernie and Marcus are sitting in a corner, discussing tactics and entrance plans, direct attack strategies and stealth possibilities as well. He heads over to dispel a few myths.

"You won't be able to get in through direct assault. And they've found all but the best hidden of ways in and at every entrance is a small army." He mutters. The two sergeants look askance at him. "The Lambent are pressuring them from below so they can't deal with a second front right now but they have enough forces and turrets to make forcing your way in impossible and stealth? If you get seen for a split-second, you'd die."

"Are there any viable ways in though?" Marcus asks.

"A couple, they all involve a little climbing and the one problem with all of them is that the slightest bit of noise and you're found, Locust hearing is far better than human and these tunnels echo."

"Is there any way to create a diversion?" Bernie enquires.

"Not without sacrificing people." Logan tells her. "But I'll show you to the entrance I'd take when you're ready to go and I'll see if I can't draw some fire away for you. Would that do?"

"You just said that a diversion is impossible." Marcus states flatly and Logan wants to wince.

"I heal, Marcus, I can take a little heat if it gives you some breathing room." Silence falls into place as the two Gears consider the concept. Bernie looks at Logan with curiosity in her eyes; Logan avoids her gaze and stares resolutely at the stone wall opposite him. After a minute's thought, Marcus looks up from his hands.

"I can't think of anything else that might work," he announces. "We'll go with that plan and if something else that will make life easier comes up, it's not set in stone." Bernie nods in agreement and Logan smiles slightly, a little proud, a little sad and a little bittersweet too. Bernie spots him and he curses inwardly.

"Since when did you two get together?" She demands, quietly. Marcus looks anything other than focused for a microsecond before reasserting control over his facial muscles.

"Not long after Logan joined the COG." Marcus admits somewhat sullenly.

"_When?"_ She insists.

"The night we hit the 'Home Guard' and had that bar fight." Logan fills in when Marcus goes to hedge. "Day before you met me." Bernie shrugs.

"Oh, right." She pauses, "just wondered."

And the conversation ends. Logan waits for a minute or two in case anything else comes up and then heads over to the entrance and sits with his back to the wall just to the side of the covered tunnel mouth. He assumes as close an equivalent to the Lotus position as he can before running through the more basic arts of meditation, focusing his mind and body with some difficulty but still managing it, expanding his senses to give him an image of the tunnels immediately surrounding the den. Only dimly aware of events inside the den itself he hears Bernie get up and head over to the rest of the sleeping Gears, bedding down herself while Marcus remains sitting at the table and Dom stays sitting in his corner, wrapped up in what Logan now realises is grief, well masked and tightly controlled but slowly crushing the compassionate Gear under its weight. Time flows by him and it's times like these, body and mind on constant alert but calmed and directed through meditation and focus, that Logan would swear he could hear and feel the currents of time brushing past him without leaving a trace, all the while eroding even the most solid of bedrock with a touch too light to truly sense.

_Sic transit gloria mundi._ The Latin is full of memory, the fall of nations and cities, the rise of great leaders and the loss of greater men who were just ordinary soldiers doing their job. Thus passes the glory of the world. Logan smiles bitterly, the glory of the world often passes in storms of gunfire and violence. Who knows if the cure for cancer is lying dead in a ditch, killed by the enemy during a brutal push forwards, or whether the solution to the fossil fuel crisis is rotting in a mass grave, having died in a village somewhere trying to stop another occurrence of genocide, the obliteration of another small community.

With effort, a will gained from years of study, Logan suppresses the tides of emotion and recollection, shoves them back to the shadows they came from and seals them off once more. The raging beast hiding behind them will have its time but it will not be now.

"Wake me up for second watch, Logan." Marcus stands in front of him, the sergeant's unruffled countenance belied by the scents of anxiety, worry and adrenalin. A true man of war: caring for his comrades but still enjoying the thrill a bit.

"Will do." Logan says quietly. Marcus grunts and then sits down next to him. "Don't trust me to keep guard alone, eh?" Logan jibes.

"Something like that." Marcus tells him, a hint of humour in the words. Logan smiles, retreats back into the constructed serenity of his mind. It's not long before the lethargy permeating the air sends Marcus to sleep and lets Logan truly stretch his senses, the slower heartbeats of his comrades less of distraction than the noise created by their wakefulness. A wild ticker forages in the pits of a collapsed tunnel, a fruit falls and one of the stone-plated creatures hurries towards the crash site in hunger-driven rush of motion. The wind, driven by the changes in temperature throughout the tunnel system and the heat of sun warmed rock that travels down into the Hollow, traipses through the caverns and spaces, whistling in places. Distantly, too distant to mean anything, a Berserker roars and the sound pollution of the Locust can be heard.


	3. Execution

Marcus bolts straight into awareness, a sound bordering on the inaudible sending his mind flying into consciousness like a thrown knife. The sight of Logan tightening the fit of his boots greets him and it's with a little relief that Marcus realises the man let him sleep through the night, along with everyone else and maintained watch by himself until the right amount of time had passed that it is safe to call it 'day' again. Around the chamber, the other Gears rouse themselves and pilfer their rations for breakfast before checking over their equipment and then assembling in the centre of the room, awaiting the order to move out.

"We've got a mission to get done." Bernie states, standing in front of them all except Logan and Marcus, who watches the seasoned sergeant as she tells them of the plan.

"We're to go to the Nexus, the Locust HQ and find its weak points. The Lambent however, Imulsion-warped Locust that explode upon death, are waging war on the Locust from below so the security will be pretty damn tight. We've no margin of error on this gig, none at all. Logan will provide us with something of a diversion to draw some of the attention and fire away and then we'll sneak in via an as-yet-undiscovered entrance into the Nexus that Logan has found. Stealth is a priority, if they hear us, see us, hell, even smell us, we die. It's that simple, they are pressured and wound up tighter than Baird's nerves." A smattering of smiles and chuckles from the Gears, "now, anyone want to pull out, head back to the surface while that's still an option?" No one stirs. "Good. Then why are we still here?" Bernie asks. Again, more faint smiles as last-minute checks are made, everyone runs through the basic plan. Marcus glances at Logan and the shorter man catches his eye for a second.

Once the entire squad is gathered outside the bolthole, Marcus looks them all over briefly, wanting to lock their faces in his mind just in case, as well as check for any glaring issues. He finds none. Logan leads them on deeper into the Hollow and Marcus has to admire his inherent skill, he can barely see the mutant at times, so adept is he at staying unseen. The small fissure in the rock looks barely large enough for them to crawl through and another testament to Logan's experience that he found it, at the end of a thin ledge running alongside a chasm with no visible bottom, just the occasional beam of stone branching across the empty space, leaping from stone wall to stone wall along the length of the schism and at varying depths. Some look wire-thin, liable to shatter at a harsh word.

"That'll take you past the barricades and turrets on the tunnels in and also past most of the barracks and Locust-heavy areas. The Nexus proper is suspended over a lake or something, I couldn't quite tell but there aren't many ways in or out. The one benefit to that is the fact that if you stop any Locust finding you in there from getting out, the only forces you'll have to fight are those already in the place. How many of them there are, I also have no idea." Logan ends with a dry smile.

"Thanks." Marcus grunts. A striking snake would be slower than Logan, he grabs Marcus' chin and the man barely has time to recognise what is happening before his body is betraying him and his iron-clad control by reacting to the kiss. Stubble scrapes stubble but Marcus couldn't care, his world is the lips pressing against his, the tongue mapping the geography of his mouth and the sharp teeth nipping at his own lips. He hears himself groan distantly and then Logan is gone, a wraith backing into the shadow leaking up out of the void behind him.

"See ya, sarg." Logan falls backwards, turns it into a graceful somersault and Marcus sees him go from dark blur to crouching blackness on a beam of stone before leaping off the bridge of stone into the deepening gloom below.

"Marcus?" Anya's voice is timid, snapping him back to the mission and its inevitable complications. This shouldn't have been one of them.

"Leave it, it can wait until we're out of here." He growls. No-one disputes the demand or the logic behind it, however heartless it may be. Bernie, the keen-sighted sniper, leads the way through the fissure and then Baird, Anya, Dizzy, Cole and Dom go through leaving Marcus to bring up the rear. The claustrophobic tunnel is a long one, winding, climbing and descending alternately and the provider of time to think. There is little danger in the tunnel, none except that of getting stuck or encountering a ticker or wretch and there is nothing Marcus can do to prevent any of those from happening so his head, speed along by adrenalin and rouge emotion, ponders Logan's strange actions, the meaning and reason behind the too-public kiss and his almost-final farewell.

The only real answer to the conundrum is one Marcus would rather not think about, one of pain and sorrow that he would rather not experience. He has felt enough sadness thank-you, has no wish to encounter such bleak emotions again.

He keeps on crawling. Counts the seconds in the way he learned to tally time so that he could keep track of the hour even in the Slab where clocks were mythical in their absence. Minutes slog past in single file, held back by the cramped environ and the body-heated air that is as thick as mud with the water-vapour of exhaled breath. Relief does come after a short-lived eon, the air distinctly cooler but tainted by the unmistakable odour of many Locust. _Many _Locust. All, mercifully oblivious to the presence of Gears amidst them for the time being, nevertheless Bernie signals for a slow and steady approach to the fortress hanging in the air above a subterranean lake. Seemingly random snippets of conversation trickle down into the front of Marcus' mind, snatched when Logan was back at base for a day (at the most) at the same time as Marcus and then jealously kept in his memory.

…_It was in the shadows of course…deeper than normal ones…either I was found or I'd found my secret passage in… footsteps echo… unreliable… watch any wildlife around you, birds in the trees may take off… dislodged gravel when it stepped into the courtyard, I knew where it was… make each step either quiet or random, pause and shuffle like you're just some dog or something… better yet, walk when they do… we got taught to…this idiot stayed in the same place twice then moved…the guard came back for a third pass… space was too light, he knew we were… was gunned down…_

Information. Apparently spontaneous anecdotes and pieces of black-ops know-how that Marcus' brain has stored away, tagged with Logan's voice, hoarded and now labelled as needed for a second purpose: survival. Gradually, Marcus becomes aware of things he'd never have noticed before, of signs and traces that his own tracking skills would never have picked up on, deemed too insignificant, but with added data, now collate into viable information.

_Does he see like this all the time?_ Marcus wonders, almost overwhelmed now that his brain has figured out how to get all it can out of his senses. _No, he sees in more detail._ His logic supplies. The concept would stagger him only, wired by the adrenalin in his blood, kept on higher alert than ever before by the suicidal bent to the mission, it fits into the scheme of things, much like the heightened awareness of things does.

_In the middle of a situation far more innately dangerous to our subconscious mind than it seems to our higher brain, we can often piece together elements of the puzzle with a strange ease. Some say that to ensure we survive our brains will go into overdrive and allow us to fit together what we need almost instantly, as soon as the need for it is recognised. Others say that we simply work better under insane amounts of pressure. I've always thought that we spend our lives picking up bits of knowledge and the foundations of skills but we never use most of it until, if we're lucky, the penny drops and everything falls into place. I say that because it happened to me once and I've never forgotten the moment. The potential of the human brain is unrivalled and if we learn to use it properly, Sera could become a golden place._

The passage Marcus remembers from something he had to read at school, the memoirs of some prodigythat were mind-numbingly dull except for the odd paragraph. Marcus clung onto that one because to him, it was what made his father the genius he was, this non-replicable leap onto a plateau of intelligence far above the reaches of the average person.

Boosted, his focus allows him to sweep the musings to the side and return to the matter at hand. Frequently they have to stop, freeze in place and try to breath shallowly to avoid detection but eventually, when Baird is almost shaking from the tension and Anya is constantly gazing around with a wide-eyed, deer-in-spotlights stare, they reach a bridge into the Nexus. A heavily armoured waypoint guards the land end, complete with two turrets. But no Locust. Bernie crouches down to examine the ground, pick up a clue as to where the Locust have gone.

"Back, towards the entrances. They didn't leave that long ago either but they weren't exactly walking." She deduces before rising back to her feet. "We might as well just head straight in, there's nothing better to do around here." And with that said, she leads Delta forwards again onto the arch of stone, Marcus following the rest of them and worrying in a tiny part of his brain that only one thing could draw all the Locust towards the entrance: an attack.

Regardless, he keeps his eyes peeled and ignores the part of his brain screaming at him about leaving a comrade behind. They creep into the Nexus like thieves although they could have strolled in without a care in the world had they known at the time where the guards were. The corridors and small courtyards, the expansive rooms and the odd abattoir, all are strangely empty of any kind of Locust, even wretches are nowhere to be found. Bernie even, becomes visibly uneasy in the near-silence but leads them on anyway, from room to room, JACK providing an invisible mapping tool in their wake. Hours go by and brief sorties are made off the Nexus central to the surrounding areas, searching for viable weaknesses and finding them, along with those in the fortress itself.

Eventually, nerves brittle from the eerie quiet, Bernie and Marcus decide that they have enough information for Prescott and make the choice to head back to the only exit they know definitely exists – back the way they came and then along the major tunnels instead of the fissure until they reach the way they entered the Hollow in the first place. The Nexus is as desolate on the way out as it was on the way in but now it is clear that something titanic must be keeping the Locust from protecting their seat of power. Marcus spots a small group of Locust in the distance, on the shores of the lake below them whilst crossing the bridge and even from so far away he can see that they are fighting more Locust, only these Locust explode towards the end of the skirmish and he realises that the Lambent Logan forewarned them of are gradually encroaching on the Locust's last stronghold I n tininininingd

The area around the Nexus is also deserted but as the way out draws nearer the sounds of a heated fight grow louder and louder, the rattle of turrets and whistle and shriek of mortars growing ever more in volume. Above all the bellows of multiple Berserkers are clearly audible, instilling an instinctive dread in Marcus, one that he quashes ruthlessly as he takes the lead from Bernie as it becomes apparent that stealth isn't really necessary in the Hollow for the time being.

Upping the pace to the normal run of a travelling squad Marcus heads down an open road of sorts and then Delta burst into a courtyard, evidently previously occupied by a large number of Locust and now empty, save for the deafening, aural assault of heavy combat and the howls of the Berserkers, mixing to create an on-going maelstrom of sound, shaking the stone that the Gears stand on in its intensity. They stop running, halted by the near-physical onslaught of sound. Marcus has a sudden inkling of why Logan was so incapacitated in the presence of the Riftworm's hearts as his head rings and the ground seems to shift beneath his feet, his inner-ears also affected by the sound levels.

Nonetheless, given an instant in which to adjust, Delta carry on, crossing the courtyard and putting their backs to the walls on either side of the entrance to the next courtyard's linking pathway. Marcus and Bernie look at each other from opposite sides of the gap and then, simultaneously, lean into the space, looking to see what lies ahead. Bernie straightens up seconds before Marcus and he calmly, distantly observes that he's never seen her, in all the time he's known her, look quite so shaken as she does now. He takes a second look to reassure himself of his sanity and the panorama hasn't changed.

Carnage. Dead Locust, a few Berserkers staggering around, blindly attacking everything in their way and a mist of blood in the middle of it all, skin and flesh shredded with such force that the liquid that sustains it all is flung aloft like dust from a shaken cloth, left to hang in the air for as long as it can before gravity claims it. A roar notably different from that of the Berserkers' subdues all other sound in its ferocity and beside him, Marcus feels Dom shift his grip on his Lancer nervously. Across the gap Bernie looks at him until her returns her gaze, now sickened himself.

"What was that?" She near-whispers.

"Whatever it is that's killing the Locust." He replies, just as muted. She nods and faces resolutely away from the corridor.

"Going through there is impossible." She announces. "Whatever that thing is, it'll probably kill us too if we go in there. Going back by now is suicide, Locust heading this way could be around every corner." She glances meaningfully over at him. "All we can do is wait that out" A jerk of the head in the direction of the massacre, then back to staring at the far walls.

"Alright then." Marcus concurs. With sighs, looks of morbid curiosity towards the corridor, but no complaints, Delta either seat themselves at the base of the wall or make themselves comfortable leaning against it. The discordance of the combat behind them eventually dies away, and Marcus notices that, like he himself, no-one has glanced at any timepiece or made any motion to track the time taken for the slaughter to come to an end. Cautious, wary of how dangerous the probable victor could be, Marcus leans back around the corner and peers down in an attempt to identify what it was opposing the Locust. Nothing moves. He gestures for the rest of the squad to follow and then edges his way into the corridor, keeping his back to the once-white walls and ignoring the black streaks where gunfire has left scorch marks, the odd splatter of blood where a Locust has been felled by gunfire or simply crawled out of the chaos only to die in the confines of the corridor, unaided by their fellows.

The silence that remains, smothering the squads' footsteps, is nigh-on palpable, a seemingly malicious absence of sound that heightens the feel of doom that Marcus can sense in every move Delta make. The unforgettable sound of someone stepping over corpses and offal rings out and a red shape, hard to discern but visible, differentiates itself from the ocean of iron-rust and sunset-red around it. Marcus raises his Lancer without a second's pause and behind him, more of the weapons are raised towards the being. Faster than should be possible, it is at the leading edge of the plateau of corpses, planting its bloody feet on the mutilated shoulders of a Berserker and assuming a stance Marcus associates with a threatened feral dog or bear, arms held a little apart from the body, shoulders back and chin forwards, feet wide apart and knees bent.

_A predator facing off against potential trouble. A predator ready to lunge for the nearest throat at the slightest opening._ Its chin drops and what Marcus assumes, behind the coating of gore, are lips peel back to bare more blood, this time covering teeth that look fit to be in the mouth of a big cat or wolf, not what Marcus thinks this thing might be. It snarls, an inherently terrifying thunder of lethal intent and Marcus wants, his hind-brain cowering in terror and wishing to make one last gesture of resistance before death, to pull the trigger on his Lancer and empty a clip into the being. Hauling his instinctual reaction under control, he lowers the gun instead and when Baird steps up to cover him, assuming something has gone wrong with the weapon, places a hand on the barrel of the blonde's gun and forces that down too. The growl drops slightly in volume and Marcus, throwing Delta's chances of survival behind a hunch, speaks.

"Lower your guns." He says so without raising his voice, without snapping or letting any real emotion tinge his voice. The confusion and disbelief that emanates from the rest of the Gears isn't unexpected but they obey. The being gradually reduces the growl to a low hiss, a reminder that it is still a threat, no matter how they act. Marcus takes a step towards it and it tenses up, ups the hiss back to a rolling snarl, resonating in the air. Marcus stops, waits for the hiss to return and then takes another step, he hears Dom take a step forwards to stop him in his approach.

"Don't move, Dom. I think I know…" He hesitates and thinks for a moment as he again waits for the being to calm enough to cease its growling. "I think I know what this is." He frowns, a little dissatisfied, strangely enough, with the terminology. Still, he takes another step and is faintly pleased when the squad display the monumental amount of trust needed for them to stay exactly where they are. The being, this time, maintains its hiss, stays poised on the Berserker's shoulders but doesn't react to Marcus' movements. He takes another step, and then another, reaches the slope of corpse matter leading up to the mesa of rent flesh occupied by the thing, it watches him and through the red/black layer of matter obscuring its face, he can see the glint of blue eyes, observing his every motion. It seems an agonising eternity before he draws level with the being, before he is treading carefully on the ribs of the Berserker, much as a child goes from stepping stone to stepping stone with near undue care and attention.

The being gradually shifts its attention away from the rest of Delta and onto Marcus, to the point that it turns to face him, its posture changing to a crouch of sorts, settling back on its haunches, forearms resting on its thighs, hands hanging loose from the deceptively limp wrists. From it's still slightly higher vantage point it eyes the approaching Gear with an unbothered stare, yet Marcus likens himself to a rabbit, heading boldly towards a perching eagle in the hopes of discussing a truce. The faint breeze in the carven, pricking his eyes with cold needles, changes direction and switches to biting at the uncovered skin at the back of his neck. Combined with the unblinking blue eyes tracking his progress, Marcus finds it hard not to shiver. The being, however, with the change in the wind, makes a move as he reaches the Berserker's shoulder blades, rising up to stalk, with its shoulders back and chin down low, pure hunting predator, towards Marcus, who, wary of what something such as this could do to him should it decide to hurt him, freezes stock still.

It stops, a single pace in front of him and stands there, head at a tilt, gazing at him. He notices that its left ear is mostly missing, with only a ragged stump, still bleeding, left. Aware, somehow, of the intense stares of his watching squad, Marcus reaches out ever so slowly and, mildly pleased that the being doesn't shy away, touches it gently with two fingers, rests them in the hollow between the two sides of its collarbone. It is now the one to freeze, skin twitching as each muscle locks up tight, dried flakes of blood cracking of and drifting to the ground. Marcus feels, beneath the caked-on offal, the warmth of another living thing, feels the slight movements of muscles under skin for a moment until, a striking viper, the being has moved around his outstretched arm and is in front of him, leaning into him and standing as tall as it can to whisper to him. Warm air, blood heated and reeking of spilled blood too, rushes over his ear, leaves traces of heat to fade away in the skin of his neck and cheek.

"More are coming, the Berserkers call out. Leave." Marcus barely has time to comprehend that what he is hearing are words before Logan is standing to the side, metres away and backing out further onto the plain of shredded bodies and losing himself in the red gloom. Marcus watches him go for a second, mind sent adrift by the sight of what the collected, wry black ops Gear has been reduced to.

_Or is it raised to? Turned into?_ Part of him argues._ Look at this butchery, don't you mean_ _elevated, advanced to?_ He shakes his head to dislodge the doubts as he turns back to gesture for the rest of Delta to mount the slickened slope up onto the plateau. They do so, nervously watching the shadows, and Marcus doesn't have to know them as well as he does to realise that they are watching for the return of Logan, unrecognisable to them in the state he was in. Bending his concentration back onto the task of getting them out of the Hollow alive and in one piece, he leads the way across the brutally expansive mesa of dead flesh so that any arriving Locust will find nothing but a feral mutant and not a handful of easier-to-kill Gears.

The sun is glaring, painfully bright at first, as they one by one spill out of the fissure and back into the clearing, each gulping down breaths of non-Hollow air like those recovering from near-suffocation. Tearing his eyes away from the clouded sky above his head, Marcus notices the blood covering the front of his breastplate, readily identified as that from the moment of contact with Logan. Gingerly, he presses a finger to it, unsure as to whether it is the last trace of the small man he will ever see, not knowing if the mutant will be able to recover himself enough to make his way back to the surface and civilisation.

_Back to _you.That argumentative, contrary part of his mind points out, somewhat snidely. Leaving the melancholy reverie behind, Marcus instead touches his earpiece, attempting to open a link to anyone in the comms system, Control has no open channels and he needs to arrange transport quickly. Eventually, as even Baird recovers enough from the trek back to the surface enough to start whinging, he finds an open port and opens a link.

"This is Marcus Fenix with Delta-One, anyone listening?" He asks. The link crackles for a minute until, fuzzy from static, a voice responds to him.

"Fenix, this is the Kalras Outpost, Sergeant Vincent Forleth, reading you loud and clear."

"Forleth, do you have any air support or transport able to get to our coordinates? We could do with a pick up." Marcus asks, hoping that however small this garrison may be, they can get his squad back to the safety of COG turf as fast as possible.

"You're in luck, Fenix, we happen to have KR Five-Nine here dropping off supplies. I'll give them your co-ords and have them pick you up. Are you able to sit tight for a few hours?"

"Yeah, we're fine for now. Thanks." Marcus informs the sergeant who immediately signs off to go and arrange their transport.

Baird gives up on his post-mission whining faster than normal and it's obvious why: the entire squad is shaken by the killing field they crossed and unnerved by the encounter with what they know to have been a strange, Locust-killing creature. Marcus too, though he is loath to admit it even to himself, is shaken, the memories of the compacting red mass beneath his feet giving rise to nausea, seasoned Gear or not, and the memory of Logan, a wild thing guarding it's new territory, gives rise to a new level of anger in him. The rage pounds the walls of his mind, screams destruction in his head and all he wants to do is agree to its anarchic demands, demands for Prescott's death and the obliteration of all Locust. His death too, for letting Logan commit mental suicide in the first place.

The Raven banks over their clearing, shying away from the sheer cliff face waiting to shatter the props and send the machine plummeting to the ground. After confirming that yes, they are the right Gears, it lands in the clearing and waits with the engine still going full pelt while the squad scramble on board and grab seats, Baird sighing obnoxiously loudly as he does so. Marcus, still in the grips of his new-born rage, wants to hit him, or find some way of permanently shutting the blond man up. Wrestling with the irrational urge and the anger behind it, he finds the will to stay sitting down but it is only after the surge of fury has passed and his control is firmly back in place that he realises both Dom and Bernie are studying him closely with Anya also casting too many glances his way.

Internally cursing his slip up, he sets to work containing the infant hurricane of wrath in a vault of rules, obligations, duties, all the things he was raised to value so highly. By the time the nearly elemental rage is halfway caged the chopper is coming in to land in the open space forming the centre of the Kalras Outpost, hedged in by buildings and thick walls, all augmented with turrets for maximum defensive capabilities.

Despite the fame he knows Delta have earned, to see the Gears standing around the edges of the compound, eyes fixed on the arrivals still manages to create a sense of surprise in Marcus, a faint shock that these men and women can still believe in 'heroes' like they are thought to be. From previous experience he knows that should he venture into the mess hall tonight he'll be treated to the best, often just the strongest, alcohol in the outpost and although most of the conversation will be around Cole, Dizzy and maybe Baird and Bernie, furtive and awed glances will be snatched of him all evening.

Much like he knows Dom will be doing though, once he's talked to the senior-most officer in the outpost, having made any arrangements that need making, he'll retire to whatever sleeping space can be found for them and stay there until the sky begins to tint a lighter shade of blue in the predawn hours. And he almost manages it too, gets a brief and succinct summary of the local situation from the CO, who turns out to be Major Saeya Reaves, an Islander in terms of origins and capable leader and then brings up Control's comms silence. The news is what he expected: nothing. Refusing to be disheartened over the lack of information about Jacinto, he heads to the barracks room assigned to him for the duration of Delta's stay at Kalras.


	4. Interrogation

"What was that thing?" Bernie asks sharply as soon as the door is closed. He ignores her for a moment, dropping his Lancer onto the bed beside her and then standing there, both the chair in the corner and the rest of the bed's length occupied by Dom and Anya respectively.

"What is this? An interrogation?" He snaps back at her, unwilling to be subjected to a grilling by the more senior sergeant right now.

"No, but I want to know and I want to know _now."_ She returns, "and after that, you can spill the beans on what's eating at you so badly." He glares at her stubbornly, saying nothing. She doesn't so much as blink.

"I knew he was on black ops missions." He begins, slowly.

"Everyone knew that from the moment he showed up, Marcus!" She interrupts him, irritation colouring her voice. "You ever met a black ops guy before? No. I have and he was one psychotic son of a bitch if he got as good at it as he did, they all are, it's practically in the job description. Not to mention that the black armour and everything kind of gave it away." She pins him down with one of her more devastating glares. "Prescott may've made him keep quiet but he made damn sure everyone knew not to mess with the little guy, I mean, full black ops gear from the start?"

"No, Bernie, he told me about them." Marcus cuts her off while she draws in a breath. "He told me some of what he was doing all the time and I should have stopped him from agreeing to go into the Hollow, it was suicide even for him."

"Oh, suicide for a guy who can heal like that? Marcus, stop guilt tripping yourself and get your head back in the game, we can't afford to lose you to gui-"

"Why did he tell you?" Anya demands softly, comms-professional voice carving through the beginning of Bernie's rant.

"Oh, I'd say that was obvious." Bernie answers for him. "They were fucking, Anya. Which is why Marcus is so torn up over it, more than he would be normally. And I don't have anything against it but I have something against him losing the plot over it when we need him in one piece more than ever." Anya looks Marcus in the eyes for the whole tirade, and it's only when, after a second's pause, Marcus nods in confirmation of Bernie's angered words that she faces away, tears gathering visibly in her eyes. Bernie turns her head slightly to watch the younger woman but evidently gives up on comforting her for the while because she goes to continue her interrogation of Marcus when Dom beats her to it, grief tainting his words like it always does these days.

"What was the thing in the Hollow, Marcus?" Marcus bows his head, not wanting to lie to his oldest friend alive.

"I can't tell you that Dom, not today." He declines the implied invitation to open up just a little, his own words bland and inflectionless. To his relief, Dom pushes no further and rises to leave. Bernie and Anya follow suit and it's with a sense of both relief and loss that Marcus stands there silently as they filter out of the room. He tries not to count the hours that it takes him to fall asleep that night but he can't help himself. The alarm in the early hours of the morning drags him out of the deep, insensate sleep that he only achieves when his mind wants to escape from itself and like the trained soldier he is, he's out in the compound finding out what's going on within minutes of being awoken. Sergeant Forleth is alongside him in an instant, creating order amidst the chaos, organising the Gears into squads and the squads into something akin to a parade ground formation. Reaves is out in front of the assemble Gears soon after, a printed report in her hand.

"We have a large scale emergence on the outskirts of the farming land to the north of here. A farm hand saw the first holes appear and from what he said, by the time he'd got the radio working, there was a small army on the way towards the Holst farm. That was about half an hour ago and by now there will no doubt be more Locust and more land lost to this advance." The Major begins with the bare facts and only with them laid out for all the world to see does she make any mention of the plan to be put into action.

"We have one King Raven and I want the three heavy-arms gunners from the Engineering squad to take a ride and man the railguns. The rest of you are being split into two unequal groups, the larger group will head out in the APC's with the two Centaurs and try to slow the Locust advance while the other group digs in just behind them so we can create a defensive front ahead of here to give the local Stranded some time to clear out of the farms and get somewhere relatively safe."

Delta, of course, end up on the assault team along with Forleth's Theta squad and three other small squads too. The outpost's APC's are revved up and loaded with Gears while two other squads take control of the two Centaur tanks. The remaining vehicles are loaded up with the rest of the squads and also the tools needed to build entrenchments, however temporary they may be. It's a fifteen or so minute ride to the ridgeline in the middle of a field of high wheat where the APC's stop to let the Gear's finish the trip on foot, the Centaurs taking their flanks like mechanical guard dogs. From the crest of the ridgeline Marcus can see the Locust approaching, and the Major was right, it is a small army heading their way.

"Well this is gonna be one helluva ball game." Dizzy proclaims loudly beside him, slamming a full magazine into his Lancer. No-one comments. Then the Berserker roars and a few Gears swear fearfully, Baird immediately turns and demands to know if they have a Hammer of Dawn control anywhere. Forleth informs him quietly that they don't and even Marcus can sympathise with the Gears now swearing profusely at the declaration. But after that the order comes over the comms to head down off the ridgeline and engage as the Locust breach the fencing at the far end of the field and come pounding across the flat land towards the waiting enemy.

Marcus takes a Drone out straight away with a rev of his chainsaw bayonet and then settles in shoulder-to-shoulder with Forleth and another, anonymous Gear, covering for each other's reloads and keeping the Locust at a respectable distance from them. The din of the Centaurs' cannons soon add to the noise of the firefight although the tanks are soon too busy keeping the Boomers and Bloodmounts away from the Gears on the ground to reduce the numbers of Drones and Therons in the main fight.

Like the peal of a church bell ringing out a death toll the sound of the E-holes opening up just behind the oncoming Locust seems to hang in the air and even Marcus would swear that even the Locust pause for a moment to better allow the sound of their incoming doom to truly get to the fighting Gears. A fresh wave of Boomers rises up out of the ground and over the comms Marcus hears the tank crews apologising as they struggle to stop the newcomers from mowing down the Gears where they stand. It's not long before the first of the two vehicles goes up in a mushroom cloud of fire as one Boomer takes offense at its presence and then the rest follow its lead in targeting the tank. Not long after the other Centaur goes up in fire too. In the fall back to the top of the ridgeline that follows the loss of the big guns, Marcus spots the lumbering forms of two Berserkers stampeding towards the fighting.

Another E-hole opens up, now closer to the Gears if still behind the Locust forces. Marcus can't see it open, even from the higher vantage point all he can see are Locust and the growing shapes of the approaching Berserkers and yet he can quickly see what it is coming out of the newest hole. The Drones holding the third Berserker back as they lead it out of the E-hole release it as soon as the Drones and Therons have moved aside to give it a clear shot at the clustered Gears holding back the advance. It plants one foot forwards, about to charge when a blur streaks out the E-hole and along the still-clear path behind the towering monster. Metal flashes and it roars in pain, only to be answered by a piercing howl of challenge from the creature suddenly hacking at its face.

Given a few seconds the Gears press their new-found advantage as the Berserker tries in vain to shake loose its attacker but all that happens is that it slides around its blind grasping and changes the location of its offensive from face to stomach, back, shoulder, neck. Even over the cacophony of the gunfire Marcus notes the precise time that the howling changes to a triumphant scream of wild victory, tinged every now and then with crazed laughter. The Berserker falls, toppled like a mighty oak tree and then the Locust around it fall prey to the killer in their midst. Blood arcs through the air in shining lines of scarlet and the glints of silver in the middle of it all are the self-same glints of a shoal of fish in murky waters, sides catching the light in little flashes of mirror-white as the creatures turn in the currents and flows of their strange, blue-tinged world.

The charging Berserkers smash into their own lines, shock troops fighting on the wrong side for the time being. The whirlwind of death vastly reducing the Locust fighting force able to raise a gun to the remaining gears, changes its focus once more, darting over to the leading monolith of wide-band hate and scaling it faster the witnessing Gears can see. Once again, the unthinkable occurs as, unable to grab its opponent in order to pull it off and crush it, the Berserker is shredded from the skin inwards. The scent of a sister-monster's blood further enrages the last of the three beings and it shrieks. The primal challenge that it gets in reply must be on the same bestial level of mind as the base creature because it staggers backwards as if already under attack whilst the other Locust all draw away from the felled Berserker, an instinctual fear driving them towards the far less dangerous Gears on the ridgeline.

The Berserker dies. The Drones and Therons, the no-longer-laughing Boomers, all die and most due to deep blade-inflicted wounds rather than gunshot injuries. It takes the surviving Gears, Delta squad seemingly in one piece still, a while to realise that they are safe, that the battle has come to a halt. And then the sight of the strewn corpses and the pooling blood, rapidly congealing organs reaches the minds of those still standing. One Gear doubles over retching up their last meal and then another two or three copy them. The figure that wreaked such slaughter pulls one foot out of a Boomer's stomach casually, the squelch of the motion travelling too far on the still air. Baird approaches Marcus' shoulder cautiously, Lancer held ready to fire at the slightest hint of trouble.

"That's the thing from the Hollow." He observes.

"The Hollow? You were in the Hollow?" Forleth asks, a shocked confusion filling the words. Marcus apr the man a glance and is gratified to see Bernie tying makeshift bandages around what seems to be a shrapnel-studded left shin.

"Yeah, that's why we need that lift, we just got out of there and only because that thing over there had torn every Locust in the place to pieces, Berserkers and all." Baird informs the sergeant, keeping his eyes on the figure all the while.

"Hold this." Marcus orders, passing his Lancer to the Gear. Leaving the spluttering, puzzled blond behind, he descends from the ridgeline

"Not again..." He hears the corporal mutter behind him. He ignores the comment and crosses the swathe of dead bodies, noting the odd felled Gear among the dead, and noting the fact that none of them are marred by the gouges the Locust corpses tend to be. Logan looks up at him as he approaches, and this time, beneath the blood and gore all over the shorter man, Marcus can see the outlines of the breastplate, boots, greaves and bracers he was missing last time. He draws to within a few feet of the mutant without either of them saying a word.

"Sorry." Logan says softly, relying on the way the air carries the sound to give Marcus a chance to hear the word.

"Why?" The sergeant asks, equally soft-spoken.

"For losing it. I should have known better but… Gah…" Logan stops and stares up at the clouds scudding across the sky. "You needed a way in and I was still in need of a chance to let rip, hadn't been able to in…Well, I'd been on the side of the angels for years. Still, should've kept it under control better, may've crippled them but it's a little hard to stop after somethin' like that, y'know what I mean?" He looks askance at Marcus and Marcus just nods, knowing something of what the man is talking about.

"Are you coming back with us?" For a long second, Marcus is the sole focus of Logan's piercing blue eyes. Logan doesn't answer him immediately and when he does speak again, it's with neither confirmation or denial of the idea.

"You know what I'm saying, Marcus. I'm losing it. Back…" He pauses, thinking of how to say what he thinks needs saying "Back where I came from I had to follow the rules, had to keep it all under control but this war over here hasn't got those rules, Marcus." A laden look pins the sergeant down. "I'm struggling to keep up the act of being even half-sane, I'm too good at killing and shit, was too well made for it and not giving in to it is getting too fucking hard." It's a taciturn plea for Marcus to find some way to keep Logan's violent side on a leash but they both know it won't happen, not in either of their minds.

"Are you coming back?" Marcus repeats, letting some of his emotions tinge his voice for once. It works.

"Yeah."

Blondie all but faints at the realisation it's Logan walking along besides Marcus and the rest of the Gears aren't much better, not having seen the man tear into a small army of Locust and kill three Berserkers. He doesn't mind so much, after all people would happily shoot him back on Earth just for existing and putting up with some stunned stares and a little fear-driven awe is a fair trade for that, he thinks. The measuring look from Bernie is no surprise, the woman is a wily one but the hint of hate in the comms lass' eyes makes Logan reassess her in a second as someone with less combat experience than most but the guts to try her hand at anything needed regardless. _Including friendly fire._ He estimates dryly, wondering how big that argument will be when it comes around.

Brushing the attention off like dust, Logan scratches absent-mindedly at the blood dried on his neck, sending tiny flakes of the stuff into free-fall, disintegrating as it goes. He tries not to draw the parallels between the end of the flecks and the state of his sanity, simply because he knows there will be too many similarities and he doesn't really want to know the exact number. Letting the worry burn up in the inferno growing in his head, he just carries on walking, drawing in the more familiar scents of Dom, Dizzy, Cole and Baird and then those of the other Gears. Gun oil, gunpowder, blood and fuel provide a backdrop to the scene and for an instant Logan could be anywhere, in any war he's ever been in because this, the slow quiet after the fighting is over, this never changes.

The half-silence persists until they are climbing out of the APC's at an outpost nearby with the sun sinking towards the horizon again already. The legend painted in stencilled military fashion on the defensive walls pronounces the place to be Outpost Kalras, the bullet holes and Locust skulls pronounce it to be the last relatively safe place around. As soon as the way out of the APC is clear, Logan scrambles out and makes a beeline for the hose lying beneath the tap set into the compound wall, wanting to get the worst of the blood off his skin and wash the foul taste out of his mouth immediately. He feels the burn of many sets of eyes on his back, hears adrenalin-powered heartbeats pick back up a notch and the scent of fear, never much from any one person he notes, but together, the fear roils in the air and the beast raises its head in his mind, bloodied muzzle tasting the air, begging to be freed once more.

He buries his own head under a stream of water, the water coming out of the hose pipe clear and after running over his skin turning an opaque red. With his free hand he scratches at the worst of the clots sticking to him and runs his fingers through his hair, dislodging pieces of flesh and the odd fragment of bone, all of which join the river of tainted water splashing to the ground and gurgling down the drains. Behind, at the rear of the APC, he can hear Marcus explaining to the injured sergeant that he is a comrade they thought lost in the Hollow. The rest of the conversations he bothers to follow are those of Gears exchanging opinions on who his is, how he killed the Berserkers, and a few discuss what he is, why his armour is black and not the standard silver and grey equipment given to most Gears.

A minute or two into his impromptu shower and most of the watchers are back to their normal posts or eating in the mess, refuelling after the fight. Followed by Dom and surprisingly enough Bernie, Marcus heads over slowly, carefully keeping every hint of haste out of his stride. Logan knows he's trying not to hurry along because he can smell the tension pouring off the man, hear the slight difference between Marcus' normal pace and his current one as he restrains himself. Finally satisfied that the majority of the gore dried onto his face and neck is gone, Logan is about to start in on the rest of the blood but Marcus reaches his side and holds out a hand. Logan passes the hose over and then takes advantage of having two hands free to get as clean as he can far quicker. When Marcus turns the tap off he grins devilishly and waits for the sergeant to face him again before shaking himself like a dog, spraying water everywhere.

Bernie snickers and Dom cracks a weary smile as Marcus blinks, pink-tinged water rolling down his face. Logan's victim just raises an eyebrow in admonishment. Logan grins wider in response before flicking a strand of hair out of the way and dragging the sodden strands off his face.

"You come over just to help out or were you after something?" He enquires, innocent words to anyone listening in but not to the man intended to hear them.

"Are you staying with the squad for the time being?" Marcus asks him, just as casually. _Are you staying around for long?_

"Yeah, figure I'll hitch a ride back to the city with you and then try to get a mission with you for once, 'stead of going at it solo." _Yes, as long as I can manage it, but you know how this could go._ Marcus gives him a concerned look, although his facial muscles don't move more than usual. Logan sees it all in the ice of the man's eyes.

"Are you up to a mission right now? You got pretty torn up down there." _Can you deal with it at all? You're coming apart at the seams._

"Heh, we've all been hurt once or twice, comes with the turf." _You should know, you're going the same way, just a bit more gradually._

"If you're sure."

"As sure as I need to be."

"Then it's good to have you back." And this one gets Logan's attention again.

"It's good to be back." Logan winks at him, just a gesture of goodwill to those not in the know. Bernie clears her throat and Marcus looks over his shoulder at her, exchanging a meaningful look with the woman. She jerks her head towards the barracks. He leaves reluctantly, knowing full well that it's best this happen now and not later but Logan tracks his dragging steps just to learn again the form of a disgruntled Marcus. After the sergeant's departure, Bernie steps up and announcing something about new clothes, latches onto Logan's arm and leads him over to a sheltered spot between the offices and the stock rooms. He goes quietly, Bernie is good enough to stop him getting away as quietly as he'd like and Dom could really throw a spanner in the works if he tried to go the other way and the Gear teamed up with Bernie to stop him from going anywhere.

"What were you two saying?" Bernie demands the minute they have some privacy. Dom looks on with shadowed eyes and Logan feels a swell of pity for the bereaved man, he knows what he is going through.

"You heard all that was said." Logan tells the grizzled veteran flatly.

"No, I didn't. I've met ops guys before and I know Marcus. I know what happened to some of the Gears who got thrown in the Slab too." These statements are curious enough to arouse Dom's interest properly, he watches the conversation with an intense stare.

"And?" Dumb insolence won't do much but it will get Logan some breathing space.

"Tell me what the two of you were really talking about, I know Marcus is a capable sergeant but the two of you have too many shared levels and Marcus may well endanger the squad or someone else over this all. Tell me." Logan can see her logic, can follow her thought train from start to finish, it's one of the skills that he had anyway and then perfected in the espionage game.

"And if I assure you that I'll make sure that doesn't happen?" He cocks his head to one side, maintaining eye contact all the while.

"Not good enough. I want to know and I want to know now."

"He was asking how long I was planning on hanging around for and then how stable I was. That all or do you want to know my shoe size too?" She holds back a smirk at the sass in the response to the repeated demand.

"Not really. How stable are you though?"

"Stable enough, I've spent long enough holding it together that I can keep going, you don't have to worry your head over it. Besides, when it gets to bad I'll get outta dodge before it causes problems and then it really won't matter, will it?"

"If I think you're losing it I'll put you down myself, shorty." He laughs and Bernie actually looks a little taken aback.

"If I did lose it you wouldn't be able to put me down with a nuclear missile, let alone a sniper rifle." Logan shakes his head, a sardonic grin stretched across his face. "I'm fine, will be for as long as I need to be. Might be less of a nice guy but hell, it'll get put down to black ops PTSD and everything'll be hunky-dory." He reassures Bernie, who, as he wants her to, sees the sense in his words and nods. Truce.

"How stable do you think Marcus is then?" She asks, far more gently. Logan tilts his head again, considering the question and the person asking it.

"He's going the same way, I'd say. And he knows it but he's got it under lock and key, it'll be years before anything comes of it at this rate. Although…" He quirks his lips in a fleeting smirk, "when he does snap it'll be big, probably field of dead stuff big. Whether that'll be Locust or not, I couldn't tell you."

"Marcus would never hurt a Gear." Dom asserts.

"Really? I've been in places like the Slab and I can see it in him, boy. You don't spend any length of time in a hellhole like that without going just a bit insane. And considering what he's been faced with ever since, from the files I've seen, he's had no chance to sort his head out. Trust me, one lunatic's opinion on another, he'll snap and if he snaps at the wrong moment in the wrong place, you could have a whole load of funerals to attend." Logan sees the harsh words sink in and feels a stronger flood of pity for the crumbling soldier looking so sorrowfully at him.

"It'll be years at the rate things are going, he knows it, I know it and now you two both know it. It could be longer if he holds on and nothing shakes him up too bad. And if this war ends before it happens, he could hold on forever. I wouldn't hope for too much but you've no need to think about sectioning him just yet." With a nod to the two of them, he slips past and back out into the compound in search of the barracks, tasting the air in the search for one specific scent.

He finds the room without any hassle and slides in with the door only half-open at the most. Marcus looks up at him, faint signs of emotion lurking in his eyes.

"Good friends you've got there, Marcus. I'd keep them." Logan informs him as he surveys the room. Chair, bed against wall, bedside table, table/desk against opposite wall, window facing door.

"I know. Dom was the one who busted me out of the Slab when Hoffman left me to rot in there."

"Hoffman, eh? Yeah, he don't like you much, respects you, but doesn't like you." Logan cracks his neck. "Am I getting assigned a room, sarg?" Marcus raises an eyebrow at the smirk on his face.

"Yeah, this one." He almost smirks back as Logan throws his head back and laughs.

"Then have you got any pressing engagements for the next few hours?"

"Oh, everyone's crashing early apart from the Gears on watch and I'm not on watch."

Logan looks at him, amused and then snags the pair of tracksuit trousers lying on the chair.

"I'll be back after a proper shower."


	5. Debriefing

It's a particularly stubborn piece of dirt and it takes Marcus a fair few minutes to ease it out from the groove of the chain so that it runs smoothly again. He busies himself with greasing and oiling the tracks, making sure that the weapon is in full working condition much like he has his armour, now lying on the table, cleaned and checked for any potential compromising damage. Eventually he places his Lancer next to the equipment, satisfied that none of it will fail him when he needs it.

The tattered, stained clothes that provide the only padding underneath his armour get thrown to the floor, a clean set lying on the table for the next day, as most spare barracks room have in the COG, what with the scarcity of Gears who bother to take spare clothes on missions. A fact that is the reason for the infamously strong COG soap, left in plentiful supply in any shower in any base or outpost as a remedy to the serious hygiene issues of on-duty Gears.

Logan saunters in again just in time to whistle lewdly at the sight Marcus' naked back and ass. Marcus turns his head to glare at the shorter man only to turn around after the mutant leaves his equipment and clothes by Marcus' and heads over, his intentions clear. The kiss starts off slow, Marcus taking the time to enjoy the taste of his lover after not seeing him in over a month but the taste and slick heat of Logan's mouth, the muscled body pressed up against his own ensure that before long it's a duel of tongue and teeth with Marcus once again guiding Logan backwards towards the bed. To his muted surprise, Logan lets him push him down onto the bed first without complaint.

Still entwining his tongue around Logan's, Marcus slides his hands down the man's flanks, enjoying the idea of the fierce warrior submitting to him even just once. He smirks slightly and runs a calloused thumb over a nipple, leaving the other hand to wrap around the aching cock begging him for attention. Logan hisses and even this early bucks his hips. Marcus looks up at him, still toying with both the man's cock and his erect nipples. The wide blue eyes, burning with lust and bordering on frenzied, that greet his enquiring gaze send another flood of hot blood down to his own member and he can't help but groan in appreciation. Another buck of Logan's hip brings his attention back to the skin and muscle stretched out beneath him, sweat already giving the tanned planes a faint glint.

Deciding to skip the fore-play, the exquisite torture that he knows Logan will always be better at than him, Marcus leaves the man's nipples alone so that he can lift a hand to Logan's mouth where, with his cat-rough tongue, the mutant coats Marcus' fingers with saliva, sucking just enough to make Marcus grab another kiss before he descends to settle his weight between his lover's legs and slide one finger past the ring of muscle there. Logan whines, bucks his hips when Marcus just lets the digit rest there, not moving at all, then after revelling in his dominance for a moment, Marcus goes straight to adding the second finger, scissors them, bending them and searching for the right place to press in order to get a real reaction from Logan.

Before he can find it, on the brink of adding a third finger, Logan growls impatiently and hooks one heel around Marcus' shoulders.

"Just go for it." He snarls through gritted teeth, his pupils almost invisible. Seeing the lurking insanity in the soldier's eyes Marcus becomes suddenly, intensely aware of how much of an effect he has on the enduring mutant currently at his mercy. He smiles properly, something in him pleased by the discovery of power and the rest warmed by the whys and wherefores of its existence. Unable to ignore the demand or his own mounting need, he does as Logan says and slides in in one, hard thrust. The wince, the pained stillness he always expects from his partner never comes, instead Logan hooks the other heel up and meets the thrust, the tendons on his neck taut and rigid, his eyes wild, unfocused. Marcus groans at the heat, the tight friction and the feel of muscle clamping down on him in pleasure/want/need. He pulls back out almost all the way and slams back in to the hilt, Logan lets out what is half whine and half growl, meeting his movements, pulling Marcus in ever more.

Gritting his own teeth, determined to last, Marcus sets up a pace that is sometimes hard and fast, other times a slow, grinding roll of the hips. Logan's hands grip his hips like steel vices and Marcus does the same, still searching for the right angle. He finds it. Logan howls, arches his back and bucks, Marcus hits the spot over and over until not only is Logan riding out the waves of an orgasm but the clenching of internal muscles around his cock has him doing the same, holding on for dear life and trying to roll with the tide of pleasure rushing through him, mind and body engulfed in fire. He slumps, resting his weight on his forearms, panting. After a minute, he pulls out and rolls onto his back beside Logan. Silence hovers in the air for a while until Marcus climbs to his feet and with the bottle of water kept in his belt and the discarded clothes, cleans up. Logan follows suit after an extra minute of recovery and as is his habit, steals the side of the bed closest to the wall, leaving Marcus the option of spooning up behind of not.

Running an affectionate hand gently down Logan's side, Marcus enjoys the feeling of both physical and mental satiation, the limpness of muscles sweetly abused. Soon enough, an expected thing by now, Logan begins to purr, a muffled rumble of thunder that, although Marcus has witnessed its uncaged, unrestrained elder brother, still sends him to sleep far quicker than anything but near-fatal exhaustion.

When he wakes up, a lingering ache still filling his body, Marcus is pleasantly surprised to find Logan still there, their limbs entangled, shared body heat warming the air. With some reluctance, Marcus withdraws his arm from its entrapment under Logan's, sliding it free slowly so as to avoid waking up the soldier necessarily.

"Don't bother." Logan grumbles, "I woke up hours ago, your heartbeat changed the moment you woke up."

"You can hear my heartbeat?" Marcus asks him, somehow hanging on to one last scrap of incredulity in the face of Logan's myriad skills.

"Yeah, I've been listening to yours since I woke up." Marcus lifts himself up onto one elbow.

"Is that a good thing?" He inquires, curious.

"I spend most of my time trying to stop myself from hearing everything around me, it gets bad enough to drive me insane sometimes. So yeah, I don't do that often." Logan informs him quietly. Marcus drops back onto the bed and then wraps his arm back around the man.

"How bad is it? I know that's what Bernie was going to ask about but even I can't tell with you." He feels more than hears the exhaled breath, an amused outpouring of air.

"Bad. Part of it's all the instincts and shit that I get from my mutation but most of it's just the effect of all the cluster-fucks I went through back on Earth and the left-overs from the brainwashing, along with all the normal insanities you get when you spend years at a time doing nothing but fighting and killing and all that shit." He sounds more than a little wry, bitterly amused by his predicament. "I told you Marcus, I've put up with it for, hell, longer than you've been alive and I can keep the act up for as long as I like really but somehow, I doubt I'll be wanting to bother with it for much longer, not when I've got a war to fight." Marcus knows exactly what he means, not having experienced quite the same thing but from feeling the beginnings of it spreading like spidery cracks through his own mind, the product of the Slab and all the deaths on his shoulders, the unending aggression of the Locust Horde. The rage now boxed into a corner of his head is yet another manifestation of it, the latest symptom.

"I understand that." He mutters. Logan turns his head and eyes him, considering something.

"Dom defended you. Keep an eye on him, Marcus. I know where he's at and it ain't nice, don't let him try to destroy himself. But yeah, I know how you are even if you didn't know how far gone I am and yeah, I told them because let's face it, you can hold on for decades and you should at least try to but it'll happen eventually." He laughs grimly, the sharp lines of his face becoming, for an instant, a dangerous mask, the signs of madness writ clear all over it. "What will be, will be, someone once told me and damn but if it ain't true. If the two of us really lose the plot Marcus, I doubt it'll change things because I've yet to meet one of you seasoned Gears who isn't just that bit crazy and I bet Preskie is just waiting for somebody other than me to get mad enough to go black ops.

"If it happens, it happens and there's nothing we can do in truth so we might as well just go with the flow, roll with the punches and hope that we come out the other side of insanity in one piece." He turns a little, flashing a broad, razor-sharp grin before facing away again, leaving Marcus time and space in which to consider the words of a man with far more experience with the flip side to the coin that is mental health.

The stares, the odd conspiracy theory conversation going on in the shadier corners of the compound, lit up by harsh midday sunlight, it all distracts him, removes his attention from the conversation going on over the comms systems between Marcus and Hoffman, a conversation that Logan can tell (hormones, pulse, slight movements, voice, the words coming out of the speaker) is getting unpleasant with one refusing to give a report over the network and the other demanding it in return for a ride home. So instead it's the scents, the sounds, the sights and the overall atmosphere of the outpost that Logan focuses on, the rare trace of fear from a fresher Gear, less war-hardened, the whispered conversations – mostly about him – and the barked orders, loud greetings and enquiries into the small details of life, even life in an outpost as minor as Kalras.

Marcus steps back out into the light, hovering by the doorway until his vision has readjusted after the half-darkness of the comms room and then stepping out to stand beside Logan. He doesn't say anything but Logan picks up on minute changes in his posture, the occasional distant look in his eyes that indicates deep thought. Thought on their early-morning discussion, no doubt, mulling over what was revealed, what was opined. Logan knows how difficult it can be to wrap your mind around the fact that anyone you know is insane, let alone the fact that your lover is the worst psychopath you'll ever meet and you could easily go the same way.

"We can expect a King Raven at about 1700h to take us back to Jacinto but we're to head straight over to Prescott's office and report to him in person immediately." Logan wants to laugh at Marcus' obvious distaste for the idea. Dizzy provides him with a chance to snigger anyway without offending the sergeant.

"Damn! I thought we was going to be let sleep before we had to lick Preskie's ass!" The man exclaims, fatigued but cheerful nevertheless. Logan gives in to the urge and laughs, at both Marcus' sulky displeasure and Dizzy's well-timed comment, not to mention his adoption of Logan's nickname for the Chairman of the COG. Baird cracks a grin and Cole laughs, a signature sound of amusement. Bernie and Dom have yet to reappear from their mission to collect supplies to replace what was lost during the fight of the day before along with what they used in the Nexus recon mission. Anya is simply curiously absent from proceedings.

Marcus waits the few minutes it takes for Baird to continue Dizzy's anti-Prescott theme and for the two of them to have their morning squabble before asking Dizzy to go and track Anya down and Baird and Cole to wander around and scope out the local situation in case Control have been ignoring any pertinent requests from the outpost. Dom and Bernie will likely be a while if Logan is right and Bernie wishes to try talking to the grieving man. The momentary isolation from the squad provides Logan with a much-needed chance.

"Marcus." He mutters, just to catch the man's full attention. "Preskie'll likely offer me something long-term at one point, one of those missions that goes on for months, if not over a year." He feels the weight of Marcus' blue gaze come to rest on him, tomb stones balanced on his shoulders. "If he does, I'll take it. I need to burn through some of this and then I'll need the time to figure the rest of it out anyway. I know I'm irreversibly psychotic but if I can get it back under control, all for the better. But if he does and I go, don't let it get to you, keep holding together. I get back to find you've gone off the deep end?" He looks sideways at the sergeant, "I'll make a Berserker look friendly, I'm telling you." Marcus doesn't say anything for a while, just stares.

"Okay." He murmurs. Logan looks at him properly.

"Thanks." He waits for a minute and then steps down into the compound proper and heads off to find somewhere quiet in which to try blocking out the white noise, a habit he suspects he'll likely need to resume in short order. The roof of the barracks, flat but too high and wide to be observed from the compound, provides him with the perfect spot to rebuild the mental pathways that stop his senses from being overloaded when surrounded by too much activity. The Lotus position comes easily, as do the mantras, the mental exercises but as he has started to realise, the peace he normally finds with little trouble is rapidly becoming harder and harder for him to achieve. The animal crouched in his subconscious snarls at him, growls at his refusal to let it free again, free to slaughter again. He knows why his mind is deteriorating again all of a sudden, he knows this vicious beast and now that it has once again tasted the euphoria of total carnage, it won't rest until it has completely sated its desire for death and blood.

Another reason for him to take up any offers of a lengthy operation in hostile territory: he'll be able to cut lose and then claw his way back to something closer to sanity when the animal has stopped resisting quite so strongly. He leaves the knowledge be for the moment, concentrating instead on maintaining the calm needed for switching back from that too-aware, hostile-ground state of being to the guarded but sense-dulled mode of normalcy, or at least less dangerous missions than those into the Hollow itself.

The thrum of the approaching Raven still reaches him before anyone else but not in the painfully clear way it would have had he not toned down his senses. Cracking his neck and rolling his shoulders, Logan rises smoothly to his feet and flips off the edge of the barracks, barely bending his knees as his feet touch the ground, boots leaving deep prints in the soft ground edging the compound's concrete plane. The two Gears coming out of the building behind him halt, stunned by the act and as he walks away, Logan hears yet another theory about him and his origins being born, this one no more outlandish than any of the others.

_Screw subtlety. _He crosses the yard to where Forleth and Marcus are talking, now joined by a quarrelling Dizzy and Baird, an amused Cole and a sullen Anya. As he reaches them, Bernie and Dom exit the supply rooms and head on over, each burdened with extra rations, ammo and replacements for what was used during the mission. A conversation about how best to fend off an ambush turns to why Prescott sent Delta into the Hollow and as Logan steps up to where the sergeants are leaning against the comms office wall in the shade, Forleth ponders why Control but not the rest of Jacinto was out of reach for a day. No-one can give him an answer.

"Raven's on its way, sarg." A corporal opens the office door to inform Forleth who nods in both acknowledgement and dismissal. The man disappears back into the building. Bernie and Dom pile up the supplies on the floor and after the squad have replenished their personal ammo and ration stores, tease cloth out of the piles and open them up into large, shapeless bags. They are filled with the remainder of the items, ready to be lifted onto the King Raven when it lands to be left here so that should the pilots have to wait around or go immediately, the supplies will be there regardless. Logan watches, standing loose-limbed on the border of the coms office's shadow and the glaring white light from the courtyard's pale concrete.

The King Raven blasts dust up into the onlookers' eyes and Logan, forewarned by the chopper's engine and its mechanical roar, only turns his head back to actually look at the vehicle when the wind has died down to avoid the irritation. The pilot bellows over the reverberating throb of the spinning props, demanding that Delta get on board immediately because he's no time to waste. In true, efficient military fashion the squad comply, with Dizzy waving to a handful of Gears he's become vaguely acquainted with and Marcus nodding his leave to Forleth and beside him the suddenly-appeared Major Reaves. Logan takes the seat by the left railgun and as the chopper takes off once more stretches out and feigns sleep, unwilling to watch the landscape, and the hours with it, pass by beneath him endlessly.

They touch down in Jacinto, the hustle of the base rising up to swallow Logan whole as Dizzy elbows him and he pretends to wake up, just another soldier too used to Ravens to be unable to sleep in them and glad to use the skill. He climbs out of the aircraft and stretches as he stands beside it for a moment, the down rush of air from the Raven's decelerating blades trying to force his arms back down and blowing his hair in his face. He brushes the strands away, following Marcus as the squad head over to Preskie's offices to report, marginally annoyed that, without his Stetson, his hair is free to get in his way after having grown long enough to do with being tied back during his stay in the Hollow.

There is a curious silence that trails in their wake, a deadened hush of noiseless shock and awe, bred by the rumour mill and the no-doubt leaked location of where Delta squad have been. The corridors fill up until it's surreal, a victory march through the hallways of Jacinto's military base with Gears parting before them like the Red Sea yet simultaneously appearing to line the corridors, the congregation coming to witness their Messiah's return, his apostles in his shadow. From beside him, Logan can smell Marcus' unease, can feel the tension pouring off Delta in a torrential rain of disquiet.

The doors to Preskie's office provide a safe harbour, somewhere to shelter from the reverence filling the passageways of the base. Until Prescott gestures and his two bodyguards close those doors, trapping them in the room with no avenue of retreat available. Preskie takes a minute to arrange papers and look busy, Delta squad they may be but he is the Chairman and no matter what state the nation is in, some little rituals have to be observed. Hoffman, hovering to the side of the ornate desk, looks more than slightly annoyed by the posturing and the bodyguards, one to either side of their charge, simply look bored by the monotony of standing still in an office for hours on end. Were he less on-edge, Logan knows he would be sadistically amused by their predicament but as it is, he's too full of anger at Prescott for sending even Delta-One into the Hollow to fell much.

"Do you have the information, Sergeant?" Preskie asks, finally looking up at his visitors. Marcus slips a data disk out from under his breast plate and hands it to the Chairman.

"Yes, sir. We mapped the Nexus completely without any trouble." Preskie raises an eyebrow. Logan feels Marcus shift in rapidly-growing irritation at the man and idly starts to plan how one would eliminate the Chairman without being killed by either the bodyguards or Hoffman.

"I was lead to believe that getting close to the Nexus was particularly dangerous, what did you encounter in terms of Locust forces?" When Marcus tenses up with another surge of irritation, Logan suspects it is at the implied slight towards the mutant's intel. A proprietary smile attempts to fight its way onto his face at the sergeant's defensiveness.

"It would have been suicide, only, Logan's information gave us a way in that the Locust hadn't sealed off or blockaded and then the Lambent assaulting the area at the time meant that we remained undetected while all Locust forces were sent to deal with a heavy assault on an entrance to the area." Marcus shrugs, as if Prescott's opinion on it all is worthless, irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. The Chairman doesn't bat an eyelid. Hoffman watches the exchange with a carefully hidden interest, equivalent in Logan's trained mind to a need to puzzle out what the Chairman is thinking at all times. Preskie steeples his fingers and stares at Marcus, clearly pondering his available courses of action, only, Logan doesn't like the glint in the man's eyes

"Tell me, Marcus, the problem with our comms network was caused by the shutting down of a small base just within the city walls. Now it was only a small facility according to the relevant files, a standard lab, testing areas, rooms for resident patients and twelve of the life-support/containment capsules you found the at New Hope. I discovered it while searching for a particular entry in our archives and believe it may've been a program similar in aim to the New Hope program." Preskie pauses and Logan shifts his weight as he hears Marcus' pulse gathering speed like a charging bull. "It's not out of the question at this point as to whether this lab was used to run genetic modification tests and other experimentation on the criminally insane members of the city asylum."

"Why are you telling us this?" Dom enquires, looking to divert the conversation from where he too, not just Logan, thinks it is heading.

"I have reason to believe that the trials involved the exposure of these patients to Imulsion in order to create a controllable version of what we're calling Lambency, the phenomenon behind these Lambent attacking the Locust. Unfortunately, when the floors of the lab that could be accessed were searched nothing was found except the broken, empty capsules which were still drawing power from the grid. It was the act of shutting the power off that shut the comms down but _that_ is largely irrelevant because we need more information about these Lambent and I need to know if your father ever mentioned it to you, Marcus." Logan grits his teeth, Marcus has filled him in on his history and even without the knowledge, Marcus is on the brink of snapping at the implication his father would have had anything to do with that kind of experimentation.

Prescott continues, no doubt aware at how angered Marcus is becoming but either unwilling to change the topic or unable to see just how angered. "I realise this may be an unpleasant thing for you to think about, sergeant, but I need to know anything your father have mentioned or done that could help reveal more information about this facility and thus the Lambent."

"My father had nothing to do with that facility, Chairman." Marcus states coldly.

"Are you sur-" Marcus steps forward and rams his fist into Preskie's face in one smooth movement. The bodyguards are moving in the instants after he goes to land the hit, hands going to pistols. Logan dives to the left and picks one up by the throat, slamming him down a second later into the floor hard enough to knock him out instantly. Pivoting on one foot, lunging forwards, he then rolls to come up to the side of the other guard and snags his right wrist in one hand, grinding the bones until the pistol is released and then snatching it out of the air with his right hand while he lets go of the wrist in his left, grabs the soldier's hair and bends him over, driving a knee into the man's guts.

In the following, crystalline silence, the harsh breathing of the guard as he tries not to vomit seems obscene, too loud for the circumstances as Marcus steps back, Prescott blinks and tries to recollect his thoughts and Delta squad watch Hoffman, the message of '_leave your pistol in its holster,_' clearly writ in their faces, their stances. Prescott procures a handkerchief from somewhere and dabs at his nose as he takes stock of what Marcus' breaking his nose has caused in the office. Logan watches him stiffen, hears his heartbeat jump in acceleration. The Chairman slowly rises to his feet, gesturing for Hoffman to forget his duty as stated in the rules and leave Marcus alone, assault on the government or not.

Logan takes pity on the Gear kneeling besides him, retching, and pinches the nape of his neck above the armour. Prescott stares at the now insensate body guard and then eyes the other unaware form sprawled on his office floor with a carefully schooled expression on his face. Logan meets his eyes fearlessly, holds the man's gaze and then lets his eyes slide away as he stalks back around the desk to return to where he was standing before. No-one even opens their mouth to speak for an uneasy handful of minutes.

"We have had reports…" Preskie breaks off his sentence to once again stem the flow of blood from his broken nose. "Of Lambent wretches at least, spotted at the edges of the towns and villages ringing Jacinto. It could be that the Locust are already losing their war with the Lambent and so they are free to make their way to the surface or despite their reported lack of intelligence and sentience, the Lambent may be sending scouts to the surface undetected by the Locust to either scout out our defences or find a back-door through which to attack the Locust from behind." Again, Preskie stops to wipe away blood.

"Either way, we need more information about these Lambent. I'm aware that, after a mission into the Hollow you will no doubt want to relax for a few days but I need you to redeploy the day after tomorrow to this abandoned facility to inspect it. Having been to New Hope there's a chance you may see something that was overlooked and in these circumstances, we can't afford to overlook things."

Marcus fidgets, moves his weight from foot to foot as he mulls over the information. The dilemma is obvious: still tired and worn down by the Hollow mission Delta will run higher chances of suffering casualties on this mission but leave it too long and the problem could grow into something more serious than sightings, pass the job off to another squad and they may suffer high casualties due to not, well, not being Delta or miss something vital.

With shared looks and various tilts of heads and quirks of eyebrows, the squad discuss the matter silently. Bernie spends a long moment meeting Hoffman's eyes and Logan, happy to follow the decision made whichever it is, notes down the interaction curiously.

"We'll go." Marcus states slowly, deliberately making it clear that they aren't exactly pleased to be redeployed so soon after such a dangerous mission, even with the current situation being taken into consideration. Preskie nods and mouths some shallow commendations of their valour and praises their sense of duty. They wait patiently until he is done and then leave.

"The hell?" Blondie demands as they make their way together to the barracks, the few Gears they pass in the corridors now that night has fallen turn their heads and stop to watch them pass. As Marcus leads the way down an empty stretch of hallway, Bernie speaks up.

"He needs information, we've got the best track record going and we've already encountered the Lambent, or at least seen them. We won't be guessing as to whether anything we see _is_ Lambent or not." She shrugs. "Put it this way, I think Vic had to argue an awful lot to stop him redeploying us tomorrow. This way we get tomorrow to try and relax a little. I haven't seen Prescott that… Desperate for information before, he's never been so tactless anyway." She ponders.

"Shock tactics." Logan supplies, blandly. "He's never tactless, never that desperate so the fact that he is now makes you more likely to redeploy earlier than normal. He hasn't played us though, the day after tomorrow is the latest you could leave it really, but he has manipulated us." Blondie scoffs.

"How'd he manipulate you if you knew he was doing it?"

"I couldn't care when he redeploys me either way, Blondie. I've gone from op to op direct, this isn't anything new." Blondie looks at him sceptically. To his side, Dom is also looking over and Logan keeps his eyes well out of the path of that grieving stampede of compassion/guilt/sadness. Dizzy chooses the best moment, Logan thinks, he could have to revive the latest verbal war between him and Blondie, who reacts with all of his normal aggravated superiority. Logan distracts himself with checking that his control of his senses isn't likely to implode any time soon and by the time he is satisfied with the integrity of his focus, he's alone outside the door to their room except for Marcus who is opening the door quietly.


	6. Research

Leaving the door open for Logan to follow him through, Marcus turns the lights on at the wall as he walks into the room, intent on getting out of his armour, lean and in bed as soon as possible, anything to alleviate the crushing pressure of exhaustion that is now growing behind his eyes. It takes a bit longer than normal, fatigue messing with his hand-eye co-ordination enough to make the buckles harder than normal to undo and then, standing under the lukewarm pounding waters of the shower, he has to fight to stay upright and awake. The curtain to the cubicle opens and a waft of cold air hits his back, sending shivers crawling up leaden muscles. The warm fingers that follow are far more pleasant.

"Tired?" Logan asks, completely deadpan. Marcus restrains an amused twitch of his lips and grunts and affirmative. Then the question of why Logan has sought him out now of all times makes its way to the front of his mind. He raises his head and looks quizzically at the shorter man who looks back blankly for an instant before smirking.

"Really?" He asks, amused by the idea. "You can barely stay on your feet Marcus. I was just going to offer to wash your hair. Mainly because then I can get you to return the favour, but hey, you mind?" And he raises an eyebrow in challenge, blue eyes light with amusement. Marcus just passes him the soap, an all-purpose creation seeing as expecting most Gears to differentiate between soap and shampoo after a mission is like asking pigs to fly. He goes back to slumping under the jets of water, one hand against the wall to hold his weight a little. Logan slips around to stand between him and that wall, soap already lathering his hands, his now-longer black hair plastered to his forehead in crazy loops and lines with strands still somehow managing to clump together and try defying gravity.

Blunt fingertips press into Marcus' scalp and then begin to move, working the soap in slowly but firmly. Marcus groans in weary appreciation and shuts his eyes, letting the Hollow, the threat of madness, the next mission, letting it all fall to the wayside for the time being, until Logan is carding his fingers through his hair, rinsing the white soap out as thoroughly as he can. Too tired to even think about protesting, or even making some witty comment about how Logan's hair now reaches his shoulders at the very least, Marcus lifts the bar of soap from the tray and sets about replicating the process on his lover's thick hair, feeling a slow smile grow on his face as Logan's eyes slide shut and he lets slip a low rumble of contentment, only to blink in surprise. A minute later and his eyes are closed once more and the purr returns.

Having rinsed off, absent-mindedly rubbing the backs of his hands where the worst of the dirt was, Marcus snags a towel as he exits the shower and dries off quickly, ignoring Logan's chuckle as his hair turns into a black bird's nest in favour of donning his trousers and throwing his old clothes straight into the bin left by the door for that very purpose. A thirty-second wait while Logan digs a hairband out of the bathroom supplies cabinet, kept stocked with all the essentials, and then Marcus leads the way back to the room, intent on sleep and nothing else. Once inside again, Logan drops the band onto the bedside table and climbs in first. Marcus kills the lights and follows him, enjoying the sensation of peace, fuelled by exhaustion, but peace all the same and something to be valued. The purr resumes and with his chest to Logan's warm back, Marcus succumbs to his body's insistent demands for rest.

Ignoring the protest of over-used muscles and the fuzz of a mind that needs time to recharge, Marcus swings both feet out of bed and stands up, rubbing his eyes with the palms of his hands before he rolls his shoulders. From behind him Logan lets loose an irritated growl at being left with a back no longer body-warmed and rolls over noisily, letting Marcus know exactly what the mutant thinks of having to get up early on one of his few days of rest. Marcus ignores him and digs out a black t-shirt, thick-cloth slacks and a heavy-duty belt for the day, deciding on the spot to head over to the archives and see what information there is to be had on the Lambent.

Shutting the door on a grumbling Logan slowly working up to the exertion of getting up, he heads over to the building reserved for the archives. Even in the middle of a war like this one, the COG record everything and it all gets filed away for future reference. It's a long shot, Marcus knows, but there's a chance some of the latest Lambent reports are in there or older, scientific documents that might give a clue as to what the Lambent actually are, other than Imulsion-warped Locust. The double doors swing open with the standard, quiet ease of well-oiled hinges and balanced doors, the pen-pusher stuck with the job of watching the archives for the day looks up and open his mouth to spout of rules and regulations or something. Marcus couldn't care less and stops the man in his tracks with a strategic glare.

The latest reports are kept just inside the building, right next to the clerk's desk in a filing cabinet carefully labelled with the legends 'Week 1' 'Week 2' and so on until 'Week 6.' Marcus knows, from being an old hand at staying in the know in the COG, that the Lambent were first seen in any real quantity by Logan in the Hollow, about 7 weeks ago and pulls out the bottom drawer, selecting any field reports or documents that might mention Lambent. Dropping the gathered files, he takes a seat at the table left beside the cabinets for ease of use, and begins reading through the 'Week 6' paperwork, looking for any trace of luminescent Locust, wretches especially. It takes about an hour for Marcus to scan through the sheaf of papers and then he simply returns them to their drawer and starts on 'Week 5' without stopping to take a break. Nevertheless, however quick he reads, it's hours before he puts down the last page of 'Week 1' and sighs.

The reports Prescott was talking about probably haven't been written down yet and they certainly haven't been filed. He drops the reports back into the top drawer and stretches, easing the ache of his abused back muscles for a moment before opening the door to the rest of the archives and continuing his search. The smell of old paper, although the first shelves are all more recent reports, hits him like a freight train for the first instant, his mind unused to dealing with many strong smells not related to battle. The moment passes and he forges deeper into the labyrinthine shelves, the lights flickering above him shedding tinged light that makes everything slightly orange. It takes half an hour but in the end Marcus finds the shelves dedicated to Professor Adam Fenix, to his time as a Gear, to his research and scientific discoveries.

Most of it is irrelevant to him, he knows most of his father's work and just a quick look at a page every so often lets him know roughly where all the projects are on the shelves, what order they are in. In the end, it's the stack of papers shoved into the last bit of space on the bottom shelf that he pulls out to read through, the odds and ends that had no place in his father's COG career or any of his large projects. A foot high with almost every page covered in small, typed words in a basic font, the pile of paper makes Marcus' eyes hurt just at the thought of reading it all. He heads a few aisles back to the cramped space left empty of shelving and filled with a handful of chairs and two desks and takes a seat, the dull light from overhead letting him see the dust motes sent swirling around in the air by his actions.

"Marcus?" The soft voice jolts him from his near-trancelike state and he snaps his head up to see Anya, a thin file in the grasp of her thin fingers, framed by the shelves to either side of her. "What are you doing here?" She enquires.

"Looking for information." He informs her succinctly, he's yet to find any but he's still hoping.

"What on?" She asks, curious now.

"The Lambent."

"Oh." She pauses, frowns a little as if pondering hard on the matter. "Did you scan through the recent reports?" He nods once, still reading while he does so.

"Nothing there."

"So you're looking for older references then." She states, and although it could have been a question, her tone of voice makes it a fact instead. He shrugs slightly and continues with his reading. For an indeterminate stretch of time all he hears in the rustle of paper and her occasional sigh or sound of annoyance as whatever she is reading fails to tell her what she needs to know.

"You're lying to yourself." She announces eventually, dead tone telling him that Anya means what she's saying. The few words are all it takes for the possessive thing in his mind's corners to start pulling itself together, coalescing into one screaming thing at the thought of someone doubting his relationship with Logan, his ownership of the man and at the same time, the unbreakable hold the mutant has over him as well.

"What makes you say that?" Hiding his demand in casual phrasing, capturing her gaze and holding it prisoner, unwilling to let her withhold any information. The rage is sneaking out from behind its barricades and he can feel it reaching for the possessive thing, searching for an ally in his head. She doesn't flinch, doesn't even blink.

"Because I may have no problems with homosexuality Marcus, but I have a problem with a close friend of mine deluding themselves into thinking they love a man they barely know."

"You may barely know him Anya, but that doesn't apply to me." He snaps at her, unable to help himself.

"How does it not apply? You've known him for what? About nine months at the most?" She's standing up now, pale eyes lit with indignant rage.

"Because he's not that different from me, Anya, knowing him is like knowing myself." He intones slowly, like a teacher faced with a child who _refuses_ to learn.

"Marcus, he's nothing like you. He's a killer, a wild animal with no control and no conscience. I have no idea why you think you love him but I know how good a man you are, Marcus, I know you wouldn't love an assassin." Anya's pleading now, leaning forwards, searching his eyes and Marcus desperately wants to let the merging rage/ownership go free to tear her to pieces for daring to call Logan a wild animal, a heartless killer. He's an animal that's carefully leashed, a killer who feels nearly as much grief for his victims as their families. _And he's yours_ adds the snarling thing in his head, bitter but too strong right now for him to really ignore.

"He's not what you think he is." He says, unable to see a way through the cloud of irrational loathing in Anya's eye for the time being.

"After seeing the slaughter at Kalras? After seeing what he did in the Hollow?" He flinches at that, he knew it wasn't exactly hard to guess but the carnage isn't something he wants flung in his face. She sees the gap in his defences and pounces on it. "Can you really love something that can do that, Marcus? Can you?"

_Something? __**Something?**_ He's standing, fists on the table and willing to punch her if she doesn't shut up. He searches for the _he'smine_rage, wanting to blame this surge of homicidal fury on that lurking red-black mass, but it's gone. Anya opens her mouth, not doubt to make further comment and he tenses himself to lunge across the table and lay into her with driven abandon.

The presence in the room had maybe registered on an instinctual level but it isn't until Logan actually leans on the table to Marcus' right, near the closest entrance to the niche, and calmly casts his gaze at the arguing Gears that the two realise he is there. At first glance, it's a calm gaze. Turned on Anya like a spotlight she immediately goes from righteously enraged to defensive, afraid and Marcus knows exactly why: in Logan's eyes the same darkness he's felt encroaching in his mind swirls like a murder of crows waiting for the chance to land on the battlefield and feed.

"Logan." Anya says, sullenly yet timidly. If she is the child that refuses to learn, he is the headmaster who she knows to fear, has to obey but loves to hate. The man in question just tilts his head to one side, a motion Marcus once again realises is almost wholly predatory, and not a simple gesture of consideration. Here is the eagle watching the rabbit.

"Anya." He returns quietly, leaving no hint of emotion in his voice. He says nothing more and Marcus sees the tension building in Anya's petite frame, she doesn't know how to deal with the unexpected silence, not when it's obvious to all and sundry that she's just been attempting to get Marcus to leave the man. If he's honest, he feels justified now that she has genuine unease in her eyes, it serves her right really. What does she know about Logan, or even he himself for that matter? He wants to snarl abuse at her or simply give Logan a cue to exact his own verbal revenge on her but manages to avoid taking any path of action he'd regret later. Or at least, a path of action that _should_ instil regret in him.

"I can and will, Anya." He states in answer to her last demand, "was there anything else you wanted?" He lets his tone dismiss her rather than say it outright and give her reason to open fire again.

"No, although I'm sorry we couldn't figure it out" She half-mutters, nodding towards the papers lying on the table in an attempt to conceal the subject of their argument from Logan. She slips past the man on her way out of the niche and Marcus watches as he doesn't even twitch as she passes within inches of him. Her footsteps quickly fade from his range of hearing but it's still a long handful of minutes until Logan speaks again.

"She wasn't all wrong. I'd say she was being nice to me if anything." He murmurs. Marcus stares at him in shock for an instant until a whisper of logic and reason sneaks into his thoughts.

"Because you're worse that what she thinks?" He hazards. Logan nods.

"Yeah."

"I still want to hit her." He informs the mutant, who snorts in amusement but doesn't otherwise reply for a while. Marcus sits back down and shuffles his papers back into piles of read and unread.

The murmur was bound to come eventually but he still starts because Logan is now somehow right behind him, one forearm resting on the back of the chair and the words sending warm air ghosting over his ear.

"So do I." The short phrase breeds a surge of vindictive satisfaction in him and he smirks as he relaxes a little in the chair so he can rest his head on Logan's arm. The fact that Logan is as possessive of him as he is of Logan shouldn't please him this much but it does and he'll be damned but he doesn't want that to change. The base fury, he realises, is back behind its walls and the fanatic tides of proprietary emotion with it. He doesn't need them, not with his 'property' standing right behind him.

"Feel free to finish your reading." Logan offers, "I'll just read over your shoulder." Marcus can tell that he's grinning as he says it but accepts the offer anyway and resumes his hunt for information. The routine of combing through the words on one page, placing it on the read pile and then picking up the next sheet to start the process again calms him slightly, takes the edge off the urge to find Anya and show her why he's fine with Logan's less-than-stellar past, with his fists. But the irritation remains as the final pages reveal nothing of use about the Lambent and Marcus can feel his last hope for finding any information about these Lambent slipping away between his fingers.

"There." Logan points at a paragraph that Marcus has just read thorough and the urgency in his voice confuses the sergeant.

"I just read that, I don't think it was about the Lambent." A sound of annoyance rewards his statement.

"It's not. 'The project is progressing well, subjects are responding well to basic behavioural training and the new DNA build produces much better physical and mental attributes. Provided funding and time aren't cut off at any point in the near future, which is unlikely seeing as having a facility in the city limits means we're at next to no risk from an enemy incursion, we may have a viable force that can oppose the enemy on their terms. The incendiary reaction the microorganism has to its host being fatally wounded may be an issue but with some minor improvements and modifications, production may be fast enough to simply win by numbers.' It's about this facility we're being sent to. I've seen the lists and files on all the 'secret facilities' around and there's only one in a city that's on bedrock and safe from Locust action."

"Damn." Marcus whispers, unwilling to believe his father could be involved in what sounds far too much like the experiments he fought at New Hope. "Damn."

He reads through the last couple of pages and then goes to stand up, wishing only to return the sheaf to its place with the other files and go find somewhere to think about what the information disclosed in that one paragraph could mean about his father. He knows the man was no saint, he just has to look to the Hammer of Dawn for proof of that, but he always thought Professor Fenix had been above the kind of sick experimentation he saw at New Hope, at the very least. The evidence otherwise just highlights how little he knew his own father and that unsettles him, he dislikes the feeling of not being as close to his father as he should've, dislikes it intensely.

The arm pressing down on his chest, keeping him in the chair, comes out of nowhere. Logan rests his chin on the top of Marcus' head and a long strand of black hair, an escapee from Logan's loose ponytail, touches the top of his field of vision. He places a hand on the arm pinning him down and attempts to pry it off. Logan just laughs at the effort.

He waits until Marcus is between attempts to haul his arm off and then changes his grip to allow himself to swing his weight around so he ends up facing Marcus but with the arm previously on the back of the chair now keeping the man in his seat. Logan knows perfectly well how he looks and he knows perfectly well that the grin he gives the sergeant is tinged with reckless insanity. Marcus stills and he feels it, the thin fabric of the t-shirt doing nothing to hide the density of muscles held in rigid tension. Then the man relaxes and raises an eyebrow, wanting to know what Logan is up to. He just grins again, he doubts he'll be needing to say much in a minute or too. Marcus is a bright boy, he'll get the message soon enough.

He can smell it when the message does sink in and it takes mere seconds to do so. The animal in him lifts its head to breathe in the scent from inside his skull and growls in approval, letting loose a surge of possessiveness in his mind that he knows Marcus could mirror any day of the week. He wouldn't have been so angry with Anya if he couldn't. Logan figures he'd best show his appreciation of the fact.

A brief flicker of questioning in his eyes and an answering look of challenge from Marcus and then he's removing the palm placed on the man's chest and moving both hands to the belt buckle below instead. The smell of lust in the air spikes as he opens both belt and flies with quick, deft motions. Marcus lifts his hips slightly and Logan slides his trousers down enough to give him access. He kneels and when Marcus chuckles, looks up, faux-confused.

"I think I like you down there." The Gear tells him, and he smirks before dropping his head to flick his tongue over the tip of the man's cock. The groan is music to his ears and he repeats the action with vindictive joy. Marcus returns fire by tangling one hand in his hair and tugging the band out of the black mass with the other so that he can really wind the strands around his fingers. Logan ducks further down and eases the member into his mouth, running his tongue up and down the underside as he does so. The fingers wound in his hair clench and flex as their owner moans past gritted teeth, managing to stay aware of the clerk upstairs.

He bobs his head. Marcus groans unrestrainedly, suddenly miles away from his control and right where Logan wants him. He sets up a slow rhythm, putting the roughness of his tongue to full use and ignoring any feeble efforts to try and force him to speed up. He hums in victory as Marcus gives up on the idea and hums again when the besieged man hisses, unable to do anything more. Cautiously he lets a low purr reverberate in his throat and then moves his hands from his own knees to Marcus' thighs to stop the man bucking his hips too hard. Not that he has to bother for long, one thing the sergeant can't do is last for any length of time when Logan has his mouth around his cock. He gets another hissing exhalation to warn him and then he has to swallow. For cleanliness' sake, of course. He doesn't mind though.

"Shit."

He settles back on his heels and looks back up at the sergeant as the man regains control of his vocal chords and puts them to use uttering his favourite word.

"Shit." Logan raises an eyebrow, keeping his smug grin off his face as he waits for Marcus to meet his eye. He does so.

"Anyone would think that you liked fucking my mouth, sarg." He points out, lips twitching as he struggles not to smile. Marcus throws him a mock-glare, he answers it with a smug grin as he rises back to his feet and rolls his shoulders.

"We going to get out of here before the pen-pusher locks us in?" He then asks, watching Marcus clamber to his feet and swipe the papers from the table.

"Yeah, soon as I've put these back." The man says, turning out into the stacks again, making a convoluted beeline for the shelves that house his father's work. Logan follows docilely, thumbs in his belt loops like he hasn't a care in the world. They reach the steps to the exit and Logan tactfully ignores the raised eyebrow Marcus gives him when he pauses to tie his hair back out of the way again. The clerk obviously pays no attention to the world around his screen and the tiny words flitting across it, he doesn't even notice them leaving the building. Logan slams the door on the way out and chuckles quietly when he hears the man jump loudly. Marcus looks at him, a hint of admonishment in the action. All he gets back is a mocking grin and a leering look.

"Say, sarg, you think the training hall will be busy?" Logan enquires. Marcus thinks for a second, looking around the compound briefly.

"Yeah, it looks like it's been a quiet day so there'll probably be a fair few in there." He informs the shorter man after a second or so. Logan sets off for the building instantly.

"Time to show them how to fight properly then." He proclaims. Marcus follows.

"Not time to beat them up and call it educational then?" He says ponderously. Logan briefly considers taking Marcus on in a sparring match but decides against it as too potentially embarrassing, for the sergeant anyway.

"That too." He agrees, after all, he's never been one for denial.

The hall is fairly busy, but Logan's been in often and a mat soon makes itself free. For some strange reason it's slap-bang in the middle of the cavernous room but he ignores that graciously, he's in a good mood, and gets on with stretching lose a little before looking around at the gathered crowd and asking for his first, and he makes sure he says it right: opponent. The sniggers are simply sniggers, not reactions to him saying anything funny he's sure. After all, all he said was "who's my first victim, then?" The Gear to step up to the mat first is one of the younger ones, female but covered in Islander tattoos and completely confident in her abilities. She is, Logan notes, not someone he's seen around before and certainly not someone he's seen in the training hall. He keeps an eye on who watches him spar and also keeps track of who he's fought, this girl belongs in neither category.

She places both hands together and performs a small bow, a martial artist then. He returns the gesture although his is slightly shallower. She assumes a stance, one he's now learning to recognise as one of the rarer native martial arts, and waits for him to do the same. He doesn't.

"After you, darlin'." He offers, a sweep of the hand emphasising the words. She stays still, not quite as stupid as some of the people he's gone up against. He goes to step back and to the side and between the moment he lifts his back foot off the mat and the moment places it down elsewhere, she moves. The Gear dives for the floor and comes up below him, palm heading straight for his gut. He pivots back, grabbing her wrist with one hand and as he returns that foot to the floor, now side-on from how he was standing, he pulls hard and sends her tumbling. Not to be deterred, for which he gives her credit, she rolls back to her feet and after a minute or two of circling each other, she tries again.

This time it's a lunge forwards to let her plant her left foot close enough and then a rising kick to his chin that he can't avoid by swaying back because she's too close and can't avoid by leaning to the side because she's come at him from an angle and the blow will connect either way. Again, his left hand snakes out and he forces her heel up and away from his face, forcing the Gear to bend backwards with the added height. With his other hand on her knee though, a shift of his grip on her ankle lets him step to the side and bring her to a standstill. Her calf comes to rest on his though as he touches one knee to the floor and brings her leg to rest on the other leg. Her ankle remains clamped in one hand and he could break her leg by applying more pressure to the knee.

The one problem is the fact that she still has her other leg free. She twists, planting her right hand on the floor and bringing her left leg around in a kick as the motion of her body wrenches her caught leg free. Logan pitches himself to the side and feels her foot brush past his ear as he now has to roll clear and come back up to begin the next round of circling. The lass isn't as good as Bernie, but she's getting there, has a skill for close combat. She reinforces that fact by closing the gap again before a normal opponent could catch their breath, this time with a whirlwind of stabbing punches and whip-crack slaps to disorient him while she lays down the beating. None of them hit but he has to dance out of the way to avoid them and she pulls each one back instead of letting the blows carry her forward, that way he can't catch her wrists and use his stronger grip against her. The thing is, she's hoping to either hit him and then lay into him, or tire him out so she can take him down with one hard hit and end it. It's a shame he isn't getting tired then, because Logan knows she can keep throwing punches all day, they won't land.

He waits until her own tactics turn against her and her motions slow down slightly. Then he slips past a punch, drops down and takes her legs out from beneath her with a roundhouses kick to the back of both knees. As she falls, he raises a hand, presses his palm to her stomach and forces her to the ground. She takes a minute to regain her breath.

"Alright, I lost." She admits, chest heaving as she hauls air into pay off her accumulated oxygen debt. Having no such problems himself, Logan rises to his feet, offers her a hand and helps her up.

"You did better than most." He informs her, "Hell, I suckered Bernie and took her down in a minute. You put up a good fight." She throws him a smile in acceptance of the praise and strides off, or, Logan amends with a faint smile, limps off.

"Who's next?" Logan asks with a smile, throwing his arms wide open. A minute of talking and muttering and the next 'trainee' gets volunteered by his mates.

Logan figures he's taken down everyone except Marcus who was in the hall when they got there by the time he's through. He's feeling loose, pleasantly tired at the end of it, far better off than the bruised and wearied Gears he sends crashing onto the mat. Marcus trails him out of the building and he knows he's not the only one half-surprised to see the white floods of the spotlights covering the compound instead of the pale sunlight that was there when they were last outdoors. A quick discussion and they raid the mess hall at record speed and head straight back to the barracks, intent on a pre-deployment gear-check and sleep.

It's only when they're about to crash proper, that Logan remembers what he meant to ask earlier: "Is Anya going to cause trouble over this, Marcus? I'll bet she could really screw with things if she felt the need." He lifts his head off his arms and looks over at the man from where he's lying, sprawled out on the bed. Marcus considers the query for a moment.

"No. She won't like it but she'll be professional about it. She may not like you and she may think I'd be better off if I dropped you, but she won't act on it, other to corner me for another argument occasionally."

"Can I hit her if she does?" He hears Marcus laugh quietly as he walks over, flicking the lights off on the way. Obligingly, Logan rolls over onto his side as Marcus climbs into bed behind him.

"Only if I haven't already."


	7. Descent

"Shit." Marcus mutters as he reaches out above his head and finds the second light switch. He applies pressure and is rewarded appropriately. Logan swears as light swamps the room. Well aware that professional soldier the mutant may be, he'll snatch an extra five minutes in bed if he can, Marcus swats the man's side as he hauls himself to his feet. Another expletive and then the both of them are busy getting ready for deployment. Marcus puts the time to use, going over the scavenged information from the previous day as well as what Prescott told them.

They're the first ones at the Raven, the only chopper in the courtyard ready for immediate take-off, and they're the last to board. Marcus makes sure that everything is sorted, that they have supplies, JACK, any available information, and only then does he board the craft. Logan stays at his shoulder, a guard dog of mass destruction, but a loyal one. They take seats opposite each other and then, pre-flight checks completed with practised ease, the King Raven lifts off even as Logan crosses his ankles, stretches out and appears to go to sleep. Marcus sees Baird pull a face of mild jealousy and considers telling the blond that Logan's not actually asleep.

Then he realises that to say so would lead Baird to ask how he knows and that isn't a conversation that needs to be had right now. He settles for following his lover's lead and shuts his eyes, rests his chin on his chest and lets the flight to the abandoned facility pass him by.

Marcus rolls his shoulders with irritation when they disembark in the courtyard of the facility. Logan brushes past him and he doesn't even consider the gesture to be anything other than a reminder of the formidable little man's presence, that and a bit of commiseration. Anya had ,not quite subtly enough for it to go unnoticed by the two of them, glared at them for the majority of the flight and while Logan seems to have shrugged it off, it has left Marcus tense and annoyed.

"Damn, this place is freaky! Damon, baby, you need to me hold your hand?" Cole exclaims, looking around at the tall walls casting them into perpetual shadows and the forbidding building spreading out in front of them like a waiting spider. For once, Baird doesn't reply to Cole's banter. Marcus understands why. There are no gates to this huge complex, all personnel and supplies would have had to be brought in by air and it's no surprise that this place is undamaged and not overrun by Locust, it's ever paranoid's dream home.

"Just one entrance." Bernie states, like someone facing an unpleasant chore and not looking forward to it.

"We get in there, get to the servers and that's it." Marcus announces, "Anything more would be pushing our luck."

"What luck?" Baird quips, his nerves showing.

"There's wretches in there." Logan informs them, staring into the shadows where the narrow windows – arrow slits really – and the ventilation shafts are simply deep black holes in the twilight grey of the building's façade.

"What?" Anya looks almost offended at the idea, but not for the reason that the rest of the squad would be. "How can you know that? We're not even in the doors yet."

Logan refrains from scowling at her, even though his hat would hide the expression from everyone. Marcus decides to step in before Anya says the wrong thing.

"If Logan says that there are wretches in there, then we go in expecting wretches." The tone of the words is the one he uses when he really can't be bothered to hear any arguments and it stops the sudden fire in Anya's eyes from doing anything more than simmering there quietly.

"So what's the plan then?" Dizzy asks, tugging his hat down on his head.

"Well we've only one entry point." Bernie starts their typical on-site planning session, as usual. "So we have to go in there. If this is set out at all like COG bases are now, then the servers will be on the basement levels, under the central block. So we head for the back of ground floor but the first flight of stairs we reach, we take down as far as we can go. The wretches we can deal with easy on the way."

"And the return trip?" Baird asks.

"We blast our way out!" Cole supplies gleefully. No-one contradicts him and he whoops.

"Let's get going then." Marcus takes point as they finally move out of the middle of the courtyard and towards the doors.

The doors are thick, reinforced and very heavy, to the point that, after Baird fails to cut through the rust and grime on the lock plate and what little of the hinges is visible, Marcus wonders if they will end up having to blow them open because even JACK has limits as to what he can cut through. Still, he goes to call the 'bot down to try and slice the lock or hinges through. Logan, however, slips in front of him before he gets the chance and without any preamble, pops the middle claw on his right hand and slides it neatly into the lock plate, cutting up and through the thick metal with little effort, just the quiet hiss of metal-on-metal.

The doors don't even shudder as he draws the thin blade out of the neatly bisected lock and Marcus realises that rendering the lock useless doesn't mean that the doors are any more likely to move, not with over a decade of dirt clogging the hinges. Still, he says nothing when presses both palms flat against the doors and pushes the muscles visible under the thin cloth of his shirt writhing. The shriek is horrendous, more so because every wretch in the complex will come running, but Delta are more concerned with how the huge slabs of steel swing inwards slowly until Logan steps into the gloom they reveal and those left standing outside are swamped with a gush of putrid air.

"Damn, we should set up some arm wrestles!" Dizzy exclaims and Marcus hides a smile at the ideas he hefts his Lancer and flicks on the light built in below the barrel. Logan, black cloth now pulled up to above his nose, is standing just ahead of them, staring down the yawning abyss of the corridor leading away from the doors. Marcus ignores the quiet murmurs of unease behind him and instead flicks his light over the walls around them and up at the ceiling, checking for doors or vents that the wretches Logan heard could come pouring out of.

"The wretches are still five minutes off." Logan looks at him with what is no doubt amusement but all Marcus can see is his outline, the shadows cast by his hat obscure what little of his face is left uncovered and the rest of him is covered in black cloth or armour, it makes him very hard to see and now, in the near pitch black, finding him without pinning him down with the beams from the Lancers' lights is impossible.

"Right." Marcus acknowledges the words and then starts off down the corridor, catching hints of Logan sometimes at the edges of the squad's flashlights, illuminating the corridor immediately ahead of them but nothing else. The corridor eventually branches off with smaller passages splitting off; protective gates like those found in prisons open but still there whether open or shut. Signs appear by each tributary of the main hallway, bearing designations but never anything else, just 'D-8' and 'D-9' then 'D-16' and so on. Destinations and words never appear and Marcus wonders why his father, who was never a warm man but was never very unlikable, would agree to work in a place like this where secrecy is literally the foundation of everything.

"Wretches." Logan warns them in time for them to reach a stretch of corridor free of vents or corridors and Marcus nods in thanks to him as Bernie, Anya and Dizzy form up as a rear guard and Baird, Cole and Dom ready themselves to fend off the swarm of scrambling creatures that they can now hear rushing down the corridor towards them. The clang of a vent cover hitting the floor echoes from behind them and Marcus lets Bernie's curse at the foreboding sound wash over his as the first wretch enters the field of light cast out to either side of the squad. He aims and squeezes the trigger, sending bullets flying into the thing and then into the ones following it.

Beside him, Cole and Baird are now also opening fire and Dom too, then the three guns being held at the ready behind them join the fray as they are closed in and stranded – an island of humans in a sea of wretches. The smell of cordite and singed wretch fills the air along with the chatter of Lancers and howling of the wretches. But they have done this before, every Gear who's ever been out in the field can deal with wretches, no matter how many there are. Marcus covers for Dom's reload and then Cole is covering his own reload, Baird shouting trash talk over the noise and behind them Dizzy is laughing like a madman. It isn't anything special, just them and the Locust and plenty of bullets.

The flicker of light is nothing, barely registers until a neuron fires and Marcus realises that they are the glowing mouths of Lambent wretches, a second wave to replace the now dwindling tide of normal wretches that they are beginning to finish off.

"Shit." He reloads again and then briefly wonders where Logan is amidst the carnage, but the Lambent wretches must be faster than the normal ones because then they are within range and chains of explosions rattle the walls and sing through the air. Thankfully, the entire lot never detonate at once because there must be damage to the building after so many years and Marcus isn't foolish enough to think that the ceiling wouldn't collapse in on them, followed no doubt by the rest of the building.

Wretches, gun, gun, wretches. His world shrinks to encompass nothing but the fight until, blinking at the splatter covering the walls and floor and ceiling, Marcus finally lowers his Lancer and breathes deeply, not noticing the stench of the air but focusing more on the fact that the fight has ended and once again, they have all survived.

"Hoo boy, that was one helluva warm-up." Dizzy grins and Baird leaps in with some jibe about him being too dull-witted to understand the difference between sport and war. The ensuing squabble is enough jump start them all and, eyes skidding over the new décor, they carry on down the corridor until they leave the area they were just defending and there is still carnage everywhere. Carnage that should, by rights, be behind them by now except for the few wretches felled by lucky shots. Marcus knows exactly what has caused it from the first non-Lambent wretch that they pass, not shot or killed by an exploding Lambent in the last half of the fight but gutted as only Logan and his bowie knives know how.

"I found the stairs." Speak of the devil, the man appears out of a side corridor, knives sheathed and looking the same as he did before the fight.

"Where?" Bernie beats Marcus to the punch.

"The next turning to the left, but the stairs only go down to the third basement level." He shrugs. "The servers might be there but I found an elevator shaft and there are more than three floors below us."

"Then we should check the third level and the ones below it as well." Marcus has his suspicions about what those extra levels will hold, he just hopes it isn't like New Hope.

"Is there any other way down to the levels the stairs don't reach?" Bernie asks, obviously formulating a plan and Marcus suspects that it runs along the same lines as his.

"Not from around here there isn't." Logan tells her.

"Then me, Dizzy, Dom, Baird and Cole should take Jack and scour the third level because the servers _should_ be there." Bernie makes it something like a suggestion and Marcus agrees with it because it is almost exactly the same as his own plan.

"So, me, Marcus and Logan then look around the lower levels while you hopefully empty the servers?" Anya's lack of actual mission experience with Delta shows, it's an unwritten rule that Bernie and Marcus put together the bare bones of the plan and only then does anyone else contribute, even if they only state the obvious.

"Yes, that way we can cover the elevator shaft if it turns out there are more than wretches here." Bernie concludes her words with a slight nod, the plan will work for all of the likely situations that could arise in the meantime.

"Lead on." Marcus jerks his head at Logan who immediately pivots on his heel and slinks away down the corridor, staying well within the reach of their torch beams this time. He leads them into a strange maze of blocks of offices, some made of many small offices, some just one very large office although one or two of the larger rooms seem to be canteens or staff lounges, Marcus only knows that every block is the same size as every other block and all the corridors look the same, all that changes is the little sign by each and every door or corridor and even with those, he finds it hard to tell the difference between the crossroads after about the tenth one.

"Here we are." Logan informs them all, after countless turns amidst the maze of offices. The double doors behind him are the indoor versions of the ones he cut open just hours earlier. The sign beside them reads 'L 3-0, 0-3. 6S-03.' Marcus wonders, looking at it, how Logan knows that it reaches the third basement level.

"The third set of stairs to cover floors 3 to ground and ground to basement level 3." Logan pushes lightly on the left door and it swings back slowly. "I've cut the locks on these doors but they weren't that heavily reinforced so you can have JACK cut the locks at the other end."

"Right then, we'll let you know whether or not we find servers or not." Bernie tells Marcus before Logan steps to the side and she pushes the ajar door all the way open. Marcus catches Logan's eye as the larger half of Delta squad step into the colder space of the stairwell and the shorter man proceeds to head for the elevator shaft he found before, Anya and Marcus just behind him. It's another convoluted trip through the labyrinth to get to the steel service door set in the concrete walls of the elevator shaft, placed in the midst of more office blocks seemingly at random and looking like a windowless, doorless office block except for the plain steel door with the words 'Stock' stencilled on at eye level.

Again, the lock has been cut and Logan opens the door and heads inside without any fuss. The passageway is narrow and cramped but short, opening out after a short, steep set of steps into a recessed platform that goes around the entire elevator shaft, set far enough back that any maintenance staff would have space to move without the need for platforms extending out into the shaft proper. Space conservation, clever.

"How did you find this place?" Anya asks, perfectly casual except for the suspicion tainting her tone.

"Same way I found the stairs." Logan tells her, kneeling at the edge of their viewpoint and peering into the blackness of the shaft. Marcus points his flashlight down into the empty depths. "Even though this place has ventilation that works without power, the air from the really deep level is still cold and damp, it smells different to the air up here. I followed the scent and bingo, stairs and lift."

Marcus marvels quietly at how, even though he himself can only feel a slight chill standing right in the path of the air currents, Logan could use that difference in air temperature to find stairs and a lift shaft.  
"Followed the scent? Like a dog?" Anya sounds sceptical, as she always seems to sound regarding Logan.

"Pretty much." Logan rises to his feet and looks past her to Marcus. "There isn't a ladder between levels in here but the lift car is above us. We can use the cables."

"And if we miss?" Anya demands, a valid point as even their high powered torch beams aren't enough to clearly illuminate the cables hanging in the middle of the shaft.

"Logan, can you make the jump first and then throw back one end of your coil of rope?" Marcus knows that the coil of thin cord hanging at Logan's side shouldn't really be called rope, it's far too thin but he knows that it'll be as strong and durable.

"Ah, yeah, I can do that." Logan tilts his head inconsideration and then unclips the coil from his belt and unwinds it all into a loose pool on the floor. He hands Marcus one end and then takes the other himself, wrapping it around his hand. "If the cables can take it, you should both go at once. If not, I'll let you know. Either way, you have five minutes once I get over there to tie yourselves on and then I'll climb up high enough that there's no slack."

"So we just swing across, no sizable drop." Marcus catches his reasoning.

"Yup." Logan affirms and then flings himself out into the chasm, time slowing down as he flies through the air and then slams into the column of cables in the centre of the shaft. They rattle and reverberate as they are forced to take all of his momentum and yet are forced to stay hanging vertically, centred in the elevator shaft. Once the worst of the swaying dies away, the thin rope still connecting him to the service platform, Logan looks up and then back over his shoulder, freeing one hand for long enough to Marcus the OK sign.

The COG teaches all their soldiers how to make a harness out of rope and Marcus remembers it perfectly, like he remembers a lot of things. It takes him less than half of the time given to rig up a harness for him and Anya and by the time that the rope is tight they are standing, waiting for Logan to call down. When he does, all they do is step out into space and there is no aborted plunge downwards because there is just enough tension in the cord for them to simply swing out and Marcus grabs the cables and then both him and Anya are clinging there, on shaking, trembling cables of plastic-wrapped steel, still tied together.

"Right. Get moving." Logan appears out of the darkness above them, his end of the cord now wrapped and tied around one forearm and hand. With a little manoeuvring, Marcus and Anya begin the slow climb downwards. The floors pass like hours, slow and treacherous. Logan, never struggling, hovers above them, somehow at ease clambering down cables in the dark. Eventually, after long enough that Marcus is feeling the ache in his arms and calves, Logan tells them to stop and directs Marcus to point his Lancer's light at the shaft wall and the light picks out the recess of another service platform set into the wall.

"I'll climb up again and then you can swing across again." The mutant suggests, although Marcus knows the polite tone of voice is just that, courtesy, there's no other easy way for them to get to the platform. He nods his agreement and then him and Anya wait for the signal as Logan vanishes again. This time though, is no smooth glide across the abyss like a pendulum, not now that they are crossing back the other way. There is a drop of a few feet and then the resistance of the floor and Marcus feels Anya stumble and has to roll so that he doesn't end up falling on top of her.

Anya is undoing the knots of the harness before he can say anything and then they are both on their feet with the rope on the floor in time to turn their lights back on the cables and see Logan reappear, only a little higher than them and holding on with only one hand. His body is turned towards them and then, the motion strangely similar to that of a swimmer pushing of the wall, he launches himself into the air again, with just as much power as the world-class swimmers that Marcus can recall seeing on the television sometimes, long ago.

He doesn't hear the impact but Logan doesn't make the ledge and he is dashing for the edge to see what has happened when the mutant's gloved hands appear and then the man hops up, as if plunging to the bottom of the elevator shaft was never a possibility. Crouching there, Logan coils up his rope quietly but quickly.

"Are there any floors below this one?" Marcus enquires, running over potential problems and all the data he possesses in his head while he waits.

"Nah, but where the forth basement level should be there isn't anything. Solid rock I'd say, until you get down to where the fifth level should be which is where we are. But the bottom of the shaft isn't far below us and there aren't any more entry points or service platforms. This is as far down as they've built."

"They didn't want to leave the safety of the bedrock." Marcus hazards a guess at their logic and Logan nods

"They obviously knew that the Locust and Lambent are coming up from below."

"They can't have, we only found out that the Lambent even existed recently and this place must have been built before E-Day even." Anya looks between Marcus and Logan like they've grown second heads.

"They knew about the Locust before then," Logan informs her, not a hint of inflection in his words. "But they were already fighting the Pendulum Wars so they didn't take any action, the files I've seen say that the COG couldn't spare the resources but it sounds like they were just hoping nothing would happen and it would all go away." He clips the coiled rope back onto his belt. "You can take it up with Hoffman and Preskie when you're safe and sound back at base though, we need to get a move on."

Marcus tries not to snigger childishly at the offended expression on Anya's face at, if you were to paraphrase, being told to stop being oblivious and shut up. Instead, he heads after Logan and leaves her to bring up the rear.

The service door opens out into a spacious, empty room, only, when Marcus turns to survey what is behind him, he sees a little panel of buttons beside the door.

"Security." Logan pipes up from behind him. "If you need to use the lift then you know that you use the service doors and you know that the buttons, on the higher levels at least, are hidden just inside the door once you get onto the platform. They probably have larger elevators elsewhere for bringing heavy or large loads down."

"They were paranoid." Marcus states blandly, still unnerved by the lengths the designers went to just to keep the facility's secrets hidden.

"Aren't they all?" Logan sounds bitterly amused and Marcus is about to call him on it when Anya steps past him and falls in between himself and Logan. If he were to ask, he's sure she'd say that Logan is obviously their point man and Marcus is better suited to rear guard action than she is or something equally logical but he doubts her reason is quite so rational. He knows that the surge of anger that her actions inspire in him isn't at all rational.


	8. Dissent

Logan scowls when Anya, smelling far too smug, steps into the space between himself and Marcus, scowls harder at the wave of anger he scents rolling off Marcus. Although the fact that it annoys Marcus as much as it annoys him gives him a little burst of vindictive happiness that he isn't the only one feeling proprietary. He catches Marcus' eye from beneath the brim of his Stetson while he cuts through the lock on the doors out of the room housing the door to the elevator shaft and they share a glance for the instant it takes him to make the cut. Anya, it seems, is determined to do something about their 'unhealthy' relationship. Even if it kills her.

Thoughts of Anya's persistence flee, however, when he steps through the doors into a cavernous space and the scents of formaldehyde and the alcohol used to sterilise medical and scientific equipment hit him hard. He hasn't smelt this particular mix of scents in a while but he could never mistake it for anything but what it is: the smell of pain and death and science at its worst and its best. There are rows of lab benches, beginning just a few metres into the room and there are banks of computers here and there, in some places huge machines and pieces of equipment fill the spaces between one long bench and another whereas elsewhere the gaps are left empty to function as cut-throughs from one row of benches to the next.

Offices line the sides of the huge room but only for as far as the benches go, then the offices become crates and the benches become strange contraptions, all of them the same that are unrecognisable to Logan even though he has recollection of seeing most of the bits and pieces lying around in various settings.

"What is this?" Anya breathes behind him, her breathe then catching as the chemical-laden air hits the back of her throat and she starts coughing as it burns the soft tissues.

"Laboratory." Logan pauses to tell her before he heads down the aisles of benches in search of the bank of computers that is most likely to work. He stops at a set of three workstations that have a scientific reference book sat next to them. His hunch pays off when the book gives up a slip of paper with what appear to be usernames and passwords on it.

"Power's out." Marcus rumbles behind him, Anya trailing far behind, poking around like a search dog and sticking her nose into every nook and cranny in the area.

"I know." Logan ducks down and pulls a socket out of one of his many pockets and hiding places. Reaching behind the computer under the benches he finds the power cable and plugs it into the socket. Attached is a compact little box that he knows from experience will power the machine long enough for his data retrieval programme to copy the system over completely onto the flash drive he procures out of another pocket. The screens light up but even as the COG's standard operating system loads up, the monitors don't make a sound, something that Logan has seen before in places like this where no-one wants to have to listen to the same little tune every time they carry on working.

He plugs the flash drive into the computer and then leaves it to run its programme, moving a steel box of beakers and test tubes in front on the computer just in case. He's had computers blown up mid-hack and it is always a hassle.

"Handy stuff." Marcus raises an eyebrow at the gadgets and he refrains from gesturing rudely because Anya, now walking over having gotten her nose dusty enough for the time being, would surely complain.

"What can I say? The techies love me." He wipes the worst of the dust off his hands and then turns to eye the strange machines that fill the rest of the room past the benches.

"We should go and see what they are." Anya announces as she finally reaches them, her voice still slightly wheezy from the chemicals in the air. Logan ignores her, leaves it to Marcus to tell Anya that they are going to go and investigate now. He is sure, now that he's pinned down that niggling feeling in the back of his skull, that he's seen machines like those before but where? He shakes his head and snarls at himself under his breath.

"Let's get this over with." He makes a beeline down the aisles of benches for the machines, the two Gears following behind him. The light of their flashlights is soon trained on the ends of the machines, taller than even Marcus and wide things, like long, wide tubes that have been stuffed full of and coated with technology until they just resemble slugs of electronics and sensors. Logan leans into one and sniffs, his eyebrows pulling down into a frown when he catches the scent of live wires and running electricity along with the faintest hum of power. These things are so covering in metal and bits and pieces that that any sound made inside of that outer layer of machinery is muted harshly. He stands up and looks over his shoulder between Anya and Marcus at the identical machine behind them.

If you were to stand it up on its end it would look a lot like the kind of machines used to grow clones and hold people in stasis. He sees an awful lot of the damn things, like at the facility X-23 was born at and various places trying to create super-soldiers and things along those lines. He tilts his head and looks at it. It does look like that kind of machine but even with power going through them, he can't hear any heartbeats or anything to suggest life.

Unless… Unless the electrics are cruder than the kind of technology he used to see back on Earth and the sound dampening effect is strong enough…

Anya lowers her Lancer just as the roof of the tank behind her and Marcus buckles and dents and then cracks, viscous liquid spraying out of the rent as a thick, scaled arm punches up through the tank and then the sound of tearing steel and breaking glass, something Logan hears far too often, all things considered. He gestures and Anya and Marcus back up into the rows of benches and he follows them, snagging a huge crate from one of the gaps between benches and pulling across to form some decent cover. Within seconds, Marcus and Anya are there, backs to it and Lancers ready to fire as soon as Logan, looking over the top of the huge crate, tells them to open fire.

The thing, when it emerges, is tall, a good two feet taller than Marcus and wide across the shoulders, with long thick arms that hang down to leave its long clawed fingers level with its knees. Behind it swishes a stubby but powerful looking tail, reminiscent of a crocodile's and its legs are also short and stubby but are thick and covered in the same thick scales that plate the creature's arms, chest area and tail. Its snout though, is long and thin, its eyes large and bulbous but sunken. Logan has a sneaking suspicion that the head is shaped to better facilitate the thing sticking its head into the dorsal cavities of its prey to feast on its organs.

It has rows of small sharp teeth, displayed in a lovely manner when the being hisses at them, but the real issue is the long claws growing out of its fingers and the shorter, fatter talons on its feet, ones for rending while the fingers are for stabbing and slashing. Around it, more of the tanks are rupturing and Logan curses whoever it was that decided genetic engineering was the way to go in their anti-Locust programme.

"Fire." He ducks back down behind their cover and pulls out a grenade while Marcus and Anya let loose with their Lancers.

"Fuck! Fuck!" Anya's panic is immediate and obvious, Marcus' muttered "shit,' far more subtle but no less worrying and even as Logan rises up to throw the concussive he sees the reason for their worry: the creature and the ones now joining it are staggered by the gunfire but their scales are enough to stop the bullets from penetrating. The ones that have emerged from tanks further back are clambering with surprising agility over the tanks in their way and Logan is already seeing different versions of the damn creatures, taller, thinner ones that are obviously made for speed, small ankle-biters and the odd hulking behemoth.

"Marcus!" He swats the sergeant in the thigh to draw his attention and then gestures to the computers left. "Here," he hands him a few more flash drives and the battery-powered sockets. "Keep an eye out but I'll take these things on you need to get all the data you can on them off those workstations." He bellows to make himself heard over the sound of the advancing quasi-reptilian horde and Anya's last-ditch defence gunfire but he gets his point across and then Marcus is pulling Anya away and he is left to pull his two hunting knives out again and then it's up and over - dulce et decorum est pro patria mori – to make a dash for the experiments before the things gather themselves for a sprint at the two Gears now working on stripping the computers.

Duck, slash, blood. Then he is twirling to ram his knife into the side of the warm-blooded being he just cut, right into where he can hear its heart pumping, lower right side of its body, in front and a little to the right of where a human would have their right kidney. It staggers, brain going haywire at the damage and then the one behind it is coming it with a hiss and a lightning-quick swipe that glances off his cheek even as he sways to avoid it. He brings his other knife up to swipe into the flesh of its armpit, cutting deep into tender flesh. Another, one of the lithe ones this time, darts in and he doesn't try to read its motions, just takes its stab of long, thin claws on his breastplate and stabs a knife into the soft part of its elbow, cutting tendons and muscle, before he rips the blade back out and steps aside top allow the beast's momentum to carry past him so all takes is a quick tug of his knife on that side to open its throat as it tumbles past.

The one with the wounded armpit has circled back around and Logan ducks one swipe, parries the following one and then steps in to stamp down on the thing's bent knee, breaking the dense bone while he rams a knife into one round eye. Blood coats his hands and makes his knives glimmer, the scratch marks on his breastplate from the first blow he took to the torso are soon joined by other gouges, some deeper or longer, some shorter and shallower. His hearing lets him track the motion of all the reptilians and move as appropriate to keep them from getting too close to Marcus and Anya. That doesn't take much effort though, the creatures have forgotten about the two Gears almost completely in favour of gutting the little thing that is so intent on killing them all and he keeps them within the bounds of the tank farm for the most part, venturing deeper into the ranks of broken containers as the fight draws to a close and it is only the late-comers left to dismember.

He winds up slumped against one tank by the end of it, breath coming out in harsh pants as he tries to ignore the combined scents of the laboratory and the gore around him. The combination mixes in his nostrils and all that fills his head is Weapon X and the pain and the death and the fear and he wants to _rend, maim, hurt, destroy_. He wants out, wants back to the wilds of Canada, wants back to the X-Mansion, wants back to the barracks at Jacinto, wants peace and quiet. He wants the memories surging through his mind to stop because now he can't tell where he is, can't quite remember whether he is at Weapon X or in Bastion's torture chamber or _anywhere._

"Logan?" Marcus appears in front of him, crouches down and Logan focuses first on his heartbeat and the steady thrum of the man's blood keeping him alive before he takes the worry on Marcus' face into account.

"Sorry," he gargles, blood clogging his throat up. "It's the smell, brings back memories."

"Of the place that put the metal in you?" And Marcus really is a clever boy, to put fragments of conversation and the odd fact together to know that. "I wondered why you didn't use your claws and then it dawned on me." The sergeant gives him a kind of bitter, apologetic smile.

"Don't worry about it." Logan sits up straight and then hacks up a gob of blood and phlegm, his throat once again raw enough that he can feel it healing. "Not your problem." He shrugs. "I'll be fine in a minute."

"Take as long as you need, I'll keep Anya away for a while." Marcus rises to his feet and heads off in what Logan assumes is the direction of the other half of the room but he doesn't think too hard on it, just slouches back against the cold surface of the tank while his body repairs what damage he sustained in the skirmish and he carefully pieces his mind back together, as he is so used to doing, as he has been doing ever since Weapon X fucked him over.

"You got all the data?" He asks when he finally trudges back to the rows of dusty benches, the scattered computer screens around the room shedding eerie blue-toned light that he is fairly sure makes him look like a walking corpse.

"Done." Marcus tells him, a pile of flash drives sitting on the bench by what must be the last computer still being stripped of all its data. It is then that Logan realises the screens around them are one by one turning off and out of the corner of his eye he sees Anya ducking under the bench to rescue another portable power source.

"Then we should check the offices and we're done here." Logan concludes, "there isn't anything else down here."

"That's the plan." Marcus agrees, his words run roughshod over by the concern and worry seething in his eyes.

"Well the sooner that's done, the sooner I get a stiff drink in the _Home Front._" Logan couches his reassurance in small talk but it works and Marcus relaxes slightly.

"Right, I've got all the power supplies." Anya dumping the collected pieces of equipment by the flash drives and then watching as Logan returns it all to its hiding places among his various belts and pockets.

"Last ones." Marcus hands him the last flash drive and power supply as he finishes.

"So how about you and I take the offices closest to the doors and Logan takes the offices closest to the tanks in case of any stragglers?" Anya suggests, once more parading her logic around when her reason is anything but. Still, Logan knows that he can't come up with a credible reason for the arrangements to be anything else, not with his head still full of debris and he doubts that Marcus will bother trying anything, not when faced with the sheer amount of persistence Anya is displaying.

"Fine." The sergeant agrees, and Logan coughs, mainly to clear his raw throat and partly to hide his smirk at the Gear's barely noticeable, but still there, sullen tone.

"Well there's no computers in here and nothing in the drawers or bookcases worth taking." Anya announces, her calm and collected voice scraping Marcus' nerves down to the thinnest of strands. He is less concerned, as much as he should be loath to admit it, with the collection of additional data than he is with Logan's health, the man seems able to pull through anything, even repeated mental breakdowns but something in this place has really got to the mutant and it's worrying him. Logan's eyes looked devoid of anything but insurmountable pain when he first reached the fallen soldier, more pain than Marcus has ever seen in the man.

"He really tore into those reptile things." Anya intrudes on his private maelstrom of worry and it takes Marcus a moment or two to figure out what it is the blonde is talking about. When he does figure it out though, he can't keep himself completely civil, not when the worry pulls the anger up out of its pit to bolster the ranks.

"If he hadn't, Anya, we wouldn't be alive to talk about it, let alone search offices for information on the damn things." He snaps at her, keeping his eyes fixed to the thin folders he is flipping through.

"I was a little scared, to be honest." She bulls on, regardless of the warning signs plastered, he is sure, all over his voice and posture, not even considering their previous discussion about Logan. "He didn't seem human though, it wasn't natural."

"Humanity is a subjective thing, some people would say that Prescott wasn't human after he used the Hammer of Dawn on cities full of innocent people." Marcus retorts, refusing to raise his head and really take the bait. Eye contact is a weakness of his in arguments, he can read people with ease once he can see their eyes and seeing what people think about whatever it is they are defending or slandering can often put a real dent in his iron self-control.

"He's an animal, Marcus."

"We've had this discussion before Anya, you may not like him but you don't really know him and _I_ do." Marcus returns the files to their shelf and picks up a battered old book of encyclopaedic nature to leaf through in search of notes.

"I can tell just from looking at him fight that he is nowhere near sane and you should know better than to even think that he's trustworthy, or even safe to be around." Her temper rings clear through the words like the peal of a church bell.

"Do any of the others have much of a problem with him?" Marcus asks, nice and coolly. Prescott would have shed a tear at it.

"They are obviously not paying any attention to his blatant mental issues!" Marcus is fairly sure that her jaw is set like stone by now and her teeth worn down to stumps.

"Or maybe they are better judges of character when it comes to old, rough soldiers."

"Oh, right. So any old soldier can tear a swarm of genetically engineered weapons to shreds with two knives and nothing else."

"Anya, whether you like it or not, I am with Logan and know full well that while he isn't completely sane, neither am I and neither is Dizzy really, or Dom these days, and Baird could probably weasel his way into getting diagnosed as mentally healthy but Cole is too damn happy when he's blasting grubs to pieces to be considered wholly normal and that leaves you." Marcus places the book carefully back on its shelf and chances a look at her.

"Are you saying-" She starts, spluttering.

"I'm saying that war does that to people, Anya and we can't stop it. But it doesn't mean that every soldier who veers slightly away from being 'healthy' is an uncontrollable killer. He was trained, on the orders of people like Prescott and Hoffman, to make the most of his abilities and maximise the damage he can do to enemy forces. So quit hounding me to 'see the fucking light' and give up. He isn't sane, I don't care, he's mine." He stops, realises his teeth are bared – like he used to do in the Slab to scare of scavenging inmates really – and glares at her.

"Yours?" She hisses, ''yours? Do you realise how that sounds, Marcus?" She blinks. "_I_ could have been-"

"Find anything?" Logan leans in the doorway, completely casual, as if unaware of the conversation he just cut off. Marcus could kiss the man for his timing, probably planned because Logan was probably listening in to the entire thing, but still, does he really need an excuse?

"No, we haven't." Anya snarls at him and to Marcus' vindictive pleasure, Logan curls one lip to bare a sharp canine and lets loose a faint growl, one that manages, regardless of how weak it really is compared to even his purring, to turn Anya's face as white as chalk.

"We should head back up to the third level and meet up with Bernie and the others." Marcus does his best to keep his voice emotionless, and not at all smug at the sight of Logan cowing Anya without even speaking. The minute they get a little privacy he will be thanking the shorter man profusely.

"Good news then, the last office had a computer in it that I copied, and it must have been the project director's or something because it has a narrow, but usable shaft drilled into the ceiling that I think goes all the way up to the third level. It's just an iron bar ladder but it's better than the lift shaft." He shrugs.

"We'll go up that way then." Marcus decides.

"Where did you come from?" Bernie demands, playing at angry surprise when the three of them appear out of the abandoned, and obviously already searched offices ringing the large, air locked laboratories and the aim of their mission here: servers. Also held in rooms with air lock entry and some heavy protection from what Marcus can see in terms of hardware. It could be that even the stuff on this larger system is just as confidential and, knowing the COG's more extremist scientists, controversial as the data retrieved from the computers they hacked themselves.

"Well unless anyone objects, we can get out of here." Bernie proposes. Cole utters a heartfelt prayer to the grizzled sergeant for letting him get out of the oppressing building and she laughs. "Before the Cole Train dies then."


	9. Halt

The King Raven is landing just as they reach the exit, the thrum of the air displaced by its huge rotor blades echoed by the high walls ringing the compound. Cole leads the charge to the vehicle and Marcus is glad that he isn't the only one walking that bit quicker to the chopper than he normally does. Baird throws a jibe at Dizzy's marginally quicker pace over his shoulder and as they load themselves into the aircraft, the familiar rhythms of the duo's bantering arguments washes over Delta. Marcus sees the tension draining out of his soldiers as they take off to the sound of roaring engines and cutting wit.

Logan, sitting beside him for once, seeing as he was next on board the Raven after Marcus, stretches out as he normally does and Marcus feels, fleeting, the brush of fingers up the back of his neck. He waits a beat before glancing over and sees Logan with his hands clasped behind his head and, incriminatingly, his face still covered by black cloth. Hiding a wicked smirk, no doubt. Marcus sneaks an elbow into the man's side at some point during the flight and considers his revenge well served, he knows exactly how annoying the buckle on the side of COG breastplate is when moved just into the spot where it catches under a plate and digs in constantly.

"Asshole." Logan hisses into his ear, when he hops out of the Raven at Jacinto, right after Marcus, one hand removing the offending buckle from its temporary location. Marcus just looks at him, eyebrows raised.

After that, he leads Delta through the base to Prescott's office, once again to make a private report to the Chairman and Hoffman before filing their public ones later, after careful checking over by Hoffman with a thick black pen, of course.

The Chairman is flicking his eyes over a sheet of dense type when they enter his office, his expression as bland as ever. Marcus waits until he has the man's attention before stepping forward to make his report, leaving it to Bernie to recount what they found on the third floor. Throughout it all Prescott's expression never varies until Marcus mentions the tanks on the last floor, and more importantly, what came out of them.

"Immune to gunfire? How did you have to kill them then?" The Chairman demands, his face lit with interest all of a sudden.

"I took them down while Sergeant Fenix and Stroud got the data from all the computers down there." Logan pipes up, his hands resting not-so-subtly on the hilts of the combat knives he used to do it. Prescott studies him for a moment and then resumes his questioning, this time directed at his one-man black ops force.

"So were these lizard creatures in any way connected to the reports of human experimentation on prison inmates?" He asks, hands clasped in front of him on his desk, still looking like a politician, despite sounding more like a kid listening to a scary story.

"They might have been originally but these things were probably generations away from that, once they had built a species with all the necessary characteristics, they must have started breeding them to get the ones I fought." Logan informs him, his voice unwavering and the epitome of professional. Marcus can't help but remember him slumped against that tank, looking for all the world like a corpse.

"Right, that should be mentioned in the data you retrieved. Did anything else of interest happen?" Prescott asks, although Marcus suspects the question should have been: did anything, not including your return trip, your trip there, you wandering the corridors and you waiting for the automated hacking programmes to finish, happen?

"No sir, after that we had completed all our objectives and called for the King Raven." Marcus tells him anyway, just to make it clear that Prescott has had all of the information they possess or can theorise about the lizard creatures.

"Well then, you can all return to the barracks and rest, there aren't any more missions that you're needed for." Prescott's words have immediate effect and the weary squad turn to leave.

"Fenix and Howlett, stay here, if you please." The Chairmen adds. Marcus stops, returns to his previous spot in front of the politician's desk, and notices that Logan never moved in the first place.

The door slowly swings shut and clicks. Prescott begins talking.

* * *

**And this one is over and done with too.. But! For anyone who is at all interested, and it will likely take a long time to make its way here, there is a third and probably final story in the works, featuring the X-Men as well... Watch this space. **


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